“…37.1% of US e-mail marketers did not test their e-mail campaigns at all.”

That’s more than a third. That’s a scary thought. Is that because email is just so easy to do, and to do poorly, that email marketers tend to ignore email best practices? At their peril!

“…the most common reason was that they simply did not know how (nearly 33%).”

One third of those in email marketing do not know how to test, a critical email best practice. How can that be? If they don’t know how to test, why are they in charge of email marketing? If they don’t know not to test, why not bring in an email marketing consultant to teach them?

“Another 27.4% reported not having enough time to do so.”

This is akin to saying you don’t have time to get the oil changed in your car, or getting your teeth cleaned. It’s something you have to make time for, no matter how unpleasant, or suffer the consequences later.

“A few (8.5%) said they did not actually see the value in testing.”

I’m relieved that this number is less than 10% but still surprised that it’s as high as it is. Testing is such a vital email best practice, it is just something you have to do.  Are these email marketers also spamming because they don’t see the value in permission-based email marketing, or being legal?

“More than 85% of those marketers who tested their e-mail campaigns scrutinized subject lines. Far fewer (54.8%) tested calls to action, and around one-half made efforts to optimize design and body copy.”

This is telling because it indicates that the email marketing folks are more interested in getting the emails opened and far less interested in converting. That might help your open rates look good, but it won’t do much for your email marketing ROI.

Studies like this are a chance to look in the mirror and see if we as an email marketing industry are really committed to email best practices or not. Based on these numbers, I’d say we have a ways to go.

See the eMarketer article by clicking here.

The report reiterates that inboxes get more and more crowded and we must be aware of consumers’ attitudes about email to keep making the most of our email marketing ROI. But lest we get complacent and think we’re doing all right in the inbox—or choose ignorance and just hope for the best—this email marketing whitepaper is worth a read.

As usual, relevance is a major point. To quote the report: “The biggest reasons subscribers choose to opt-out of permission email continue to be lack of relevance (cited by 75%), followed closely by sending too frequently (73%).”

Irrelevant content and too frequent sending. Can we just name these the two big email marketing sins? Content that matters to you, not the recipient, and emails that show up too often are two key indicators that you’re not respecting your in-house email list. When people hand over their email address to sign up to hear from you, it’s a vote of confidence, a sign of trust. We email marketers simply must accept and respect that. We must treat our subscribers with care, and make sure our email marketing serves their needs as well as ours.

As the report goes on to say, “Marketers expecting sustained engagement from their lists not only need desirable content, they need to compete within an already crowded inbox.” (Italics ours) And a reasonable conclusion to draw from this statement is that “desirable content” is one way you compete in a crowded mailbox.

Despite consumers’ frustration with irrelevant, too-frequent content, the report says 58% still believe email is a great way for companies to stay in touch with customers. It’s our responsibility as an email marketing vendor, and yours as an email marketer, to make sure that number doesn’t decrease. And we do that by being respectful of subscribers, sending content they want at a rate they want.

Need some help evaluating your email marketing program to see where you can make improvements? We’re happy to help. Contact us at blog@clickmailmarketing.com.

As the webinar pointed out and we covered in our last email marketing blog post, email delivery is a huge concern among email marketers, and reputation is the key to deliverability.

To take that to another level,it is important to realize that opt in is the most important thing you can do to protect your reputation and therefore your deliverability. Permission-based email marketing will always result in a better sender reputation, meaning it’s imperative that you put the effort into growing your number of opt ins, not just your number of emails. Remember that a quality email list will serve you better than a quantity email list. The list will be smaller but more receptive to your offers, resulting in more conversions. And less likely to report you as spam, which will protect your reputation.

For more information on protecting and managing your sender reputation, see this month’s ClickMail Marketer.

Last month we offered a dozen practical ways to grow your in-house email list. This month, we’ll share one of our favorite campaigns with you. But then we want you to come up with a few other interesting ways and either post them as comments here or email them to us at blog@clickmailmarketing.com. We’ll share them in this email marketing blog.

This favorite example was spotted last spring by a friendly freelance email copywriter. Tully’s Coffee and Pemco Insurance teamed up for a fun campaign that also raised money for charity and collected email addresses to boot. All they did was offer small pieces of paper where people could write extremely long, fictional coffee orders. You, as the consumer, got your name entered into a drawing. Tully’s got the goodwill created when you laughingly made up your order. Pemco got the goodwill created when they donated money to charity…and somebody collected email addresses, because each slip of paper offered a place to enter your email address at the bottom.

You can read more about the campaign by clicking here.

Then send us your clever, out-of-the-box ideas for growing your in-house email marketing list!

That’s why it was a treat to stumble on a Grokdotcom newsletter article    crammed full of 12 more advanced email marketing mistakes, like creating individual emails instead of email marketing campaigns, and confusing response with results.

The article doesn’t get into anything as sophisticated as using dedicated IP addresses for your transactional and promotional emails, but it’s more advanced than we usually see…and well-written too. Maybe the list is refreshingly different because it’s modeled after a list of 12 common advertising mistakes? Regardless of the reason, the list is worth going through, to make sure you’re not making any of those email marketing mistakes.

Effective email marketing is the result of adhering to email marketing best practices. But first you have to know your email marketing best practices in order to follow them…and to know which email marketing mistakes to avoid. Reading blogs like this one helps, but don’t hesitate to reach out to your email marketing vendor for advice too. An email marketing vendor like ClickMail Marketing can assess your email marketing practices and suggest changes if needed.

Read the Grokdotcom article on email marketing mistakes.

With that in mind, we offer you six email marketing best practices in the form of resolutions that can up your email marketing ROI. They range from easy to more complicated, but consider all six of them required email marketing tactics. We’ve linked three of them to previous blog posts, to help get you started:

1.    I will use Forward to a Friend(FTF) or Forward to a Colleague and “view online” options in all my emails.
2.    I will test how my email designs render before sending.
3.    I will start or improve upon an autoresponder program.
4.    I will start or improve upon segmenting for more targeted permission-based email marketing.
5.    I resolve to make sure my email delivery rate is as high as it can be.
6.    I resolve to keep up with changes in the email marketing industry more.

If you’re not sure how to tackle some (or all!) of these email marketing best practices, go to our email marketing company Web site at www.clickmailmarketing.com for more information. And keep checking in with this blog to help you with the sixth one. Better yet, sign up for the RSS feed, so you never miss an email marketing blog post.

But building that in-house list takes time! It’s tempting to go out and rent a list of 50,000 rather than slowly build a quality list of 500!

But as long as you’re consistently doing little things to add qualified names to your list, over time it will grow into one of your most valued email marketing resources. As an email marketing company, we have lots of suggestions for easy steps you can take to start growing your email list. Here are the first six:

1.    Make sure the email content is relevant and useful
2.    Include a forward-to-a-friend link in every email
3.    Include a button/link to the email signup page on every page of your Web site
4.    Include two subscription buttons/links on your home page
5.    Make sure you have a signup page on your Web site that these link to. Don’t just have a signup box, with no reason for signing up
6.    Sell the idea of signing up for the newsletter on the email signup page. Tell them the frequency, what they can expect to get, the benefits of signing up, etc.

Watch for the next six tips on Wednesday!

1.    Make sure your email promotion or newsletter renders correctly in different email clients. Use eDesign Optimizer from Pivotal Veracity or some other email marketing software to check.

2.    Proofread the HTML and the text versions. Don’t think because it’s right in one version, it’s right in the other!

3.    Check all the links to make sure they work. Actually do a test send and click on the links in the email. Go through the motions that your customers or subscribers will.

4.    Double-check your subject line for typos. Subject line mistakes can be embarrassing! Don’t just stop with spell check as it doesn’t take into account the wrong word being used.

5.    Test your subject line for spamminess.

6.    Check the list you’re sending too. (Do you know the saying about sawing wood: measure twice, cut once? That mentality applies email marketing too. Check the list twice, send the email once…meaning save yourself from sending a follow-up, apology email.

7.    Check any prices or dates to make sure they are correct and haven’t changed.

Of course a more comprehensive list is possible, but we want to make sure it’s an email marketing checklist you really use. These are the parts of your email marketing campaign that are most likely to be incorrect. Although double-checking all these won’t make up for poor data, out-of-date email lists, lackluster email template design or weak email copywriting, at least getting these seven parts right will help your email delivery rate and open rate.

Email marketing can help you turn someone into a lead in the first place, and then help you take them from lead to customer. Email is the great nurturing marketing tool, in particular email newsletters.

For example: Someone comes to your company’s website, but doesn’t buy. They aren’t even a lead because they haven’t shown any interest in buying. However, they are interested in getting your emails so they sign up. Whether you’re offering an email newsletter or email promotions or both, you’re offering an opportunity to start a relationship with that person, even if they don’t—yet—want to be a customer.

Companies are always working to improve conversion rates on their websites, with a focus on a sale as a conversion. But getting someone to sign up for your emails can be considered a conversion too, because now you have permission to market to that person.

Get the permission, and start sending relevant, useful email newsletters to nurture that relationship. Then take someone from not interested to lead to paying customer and boost your email marketing ROI.

It’s permission-based email marketing – meaning you got their permission, and your subscribers trusted you enough to hand over their email addresses in the first place. And you as the email marketer must guard that relationship when others in your company want to take advantage of the fast and cheap nature of email marketing for a quick financial fix.

To differentiate it from the Privacy Policy that reassures your subscribers you won’t share their email address, this policy is one that ensures you’ll treat your subscribers with respect. That means:

• Only sending them relevant emails
• Not over-messaging them (i.e. emailing them more often than they want)
• Providing them with a profile page where they can change and specify what they want to hear about and how
• Segmenting and targeting your email marketing

You as the email marketer might be adhering to these email marketing best practices already, but the above policy will ensure that the rest of your company does to. So your subscribers will continue to want to hear from you and your emails will continue to be welcome in their inboxes. And that can only help your email marketing ROI.