Articles and Tips

Welcome with Wide Open Arms

Or how to get into your subscribers' address book.
Once you've started your email marketing campaigns you will want to increase your chances of getting into your subscriber's inbox. Mail that winds up in the Bulk or Spam folder is mail that should never have been sent. Inbox placement gives your campaigns the ability to be seen.. Studies have shown that while campaign relevance, frequency and response (ie complaints) will affect inbox placement, making the effort to have your sending address placed into your recipients Address book is not a bad idea either. That action will override many of the filtering mechanisms put in place at the major ISP’s

So how exactly do you do increase your chances of inbox placement?
Listen to your subscribers
So the campaign looks good, but do you know what your customers want to know?
Some simple strategies may actually help you in understanding your customer’s needs better.

Find out what your customer support people are being asked by customers. By doing this you may find some topics for those customer retention campaigns you should be sending.

Surveys help improve relevance. Use your email campaign as an opportunity to ask your customers for their opinion on related topics. This data you can save to their profile. This incremental gathering of information will allow better targeting for subsequent campaigns and make your list much more valuable.

Opt-in questions. Don't assume. Ask your subscribers what they are interested in by providing product categories for them to choose from. This will improve the relevance of your campaigns.

Studies have shown subscribers will whitelist, so be a pest, keep asking always and often.
Remember to request the addition at every contact. For the initial contact or welcome message it should take center stage, even eclipsing the call for action. If you can achieve this, your marketing efforts will become much easier. Studies have shown subscribers will whitelist, so keep asking always and often:

Let them know why: "To ensure you don't miss out on any of our subscriber based special offers add our email address to your address book now."

Ensure that all your campaign templates include the "Add our email" request.

Testing, testing and more testing will tell you where your campaigns are going. You need to ensure they’re not going down the Spam drain.