This blog post is a follow up to blog 1 and is going to further discuss the topic of email marketing but instead with a focus on discussing the tools and techniques that can be used in order to create a successful email marketing campaign.

Like most successful marketing campaigns much planning is needed before you can jump straight in to the task. Some factors to consider before designing the campaign include;

• Who is the intended target audience?
• What are the aims and objectives to be considered?
• What budget and other restraints must be considered?
• How is the campaign going to be tracked and monitored?

These are vital factors that must be considered throughout each stage of the design process (Direct marketing, 2014).

So first things first, a subject line must be created as this is going to be the first thing that a recipient will see. Most people begin forming their opinions of the relevance of the message by interpreting this line then making split second judgments on whether to read it or not. Try to keep the subject lines short and descriptive as by being straight to the point your recipients will immediately be able to decide what action they wish to take.

Make sure that the subject line has at least 2 elements of CURVE.

The image below shows an email received from Moonpig and can be seen as having an effective subject line because it has CURVE. The subject line “Alex remember whose birthday it is?” is using a short snappy question creating a sense of urgency and curiosity. This sense is also created because of the nature of the question making me panic with the thought that I had forgotten an important date. The use of my name enables it to be relevant to me making it feel like a personal message. There is also some sense of value about the line because of the fact that I had bought a birthday card around this time last year and Moonpig were able to use this information to remind me that this person’s birthday was approaching.

Another example of an email effectively using CURVE in it’s subject line can be seen below. I rarely open my Hotmail messages, but on this occasion one email stood out from the rest of the junk. The email was titled “Are you scared…..?” and it really did catch my attention as I was curious to find out what this could possibly mean.

Personalised emails and using a person’s name is more likely to get the reader’s attention and immediately makes your email seem more useful and relevant. Distributing emails addressed to an unknown recipient sends out the message that you don’t know the first thing about your clients. By including a first name this is a really simple feature but the difference it can make to their perception of your business is highly significant (Neilpatel, 2015).

Moving on to the content of the email, Keep it brief within the body of the email and stay away from clutter. Know exactly what your desired call to action is, and make it bold and easy to act on (Housh, 2015).
Check that your email does not contain spam trigger words such as “Free”, “winner”, “%”. To reduce the amount of spam (unwanted email) that people would get, internet service providers introduced tools such as spam assassin which score content on the basis of spam trigger words in determining whether or not the email was likely to be spam. There are similar tools available that can be used to score and test your emails to clarify whether your email will make it to the recipient’s inbox (Mullen and Daniels, 2009).

As mentioned in blog 1, emails are an essential element of raising awareness of the brand, therefore including a logo in the top left corner and other important brand features in the header can be an effective way of raising awareness (Housh, 2015). Consider using one or two appealing images but do not just rely on this as your main focal point of delivery as Spam filters can prevent some images from being displayed therefore always include text in the email. For tips on how to be creative with the body of the email with regards to  layout, colour, font and images check out the link below!

Test the effectiveness of your email campaign by measuring metrics such as click through, delivery and open rate. For more information regarding these measurements see blog 1.

Although most people will read their emails on a screen resolution of 1024 x 768, most email readers do not necessarily require the whole screen. Advert banners and the way email applications are laid out could occupy space that was intended for the email. By not creating the right fit on the screen this could then require the reader to scroll to view all of the email which could mean that content is not seen, therefore understanding the resolution is an important factor (Mullen and Daniels, 2009).

With these tips you are now ready to get started on your campaign!

(The blue and yellow images have been taken from the source Dweck, 2014)

References

Dweck, J. (2014). 10 Email Best Practices | Madison Logic. [online] Madisonlogic.com. Available at: http://www.madisonlogic.com/10-email-best-practices/ [Accessed 22 Apr. 2015].

Emailmarketing.comm100.com, (2015). How to Build Email List? Where to Find Email Subscribers?. [online] Available at: http://emailmarketing.comm100.com/email-marketing-ebook/build-email-list.aspx [Accessed 22 Apr. 2015].

Goudreau, J. (2014). Here’s What You Should Put In The Subject Line Of Work Emails. [online] Business Insider. Available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-to-put-in-subject-line-of-work-emails-2014-3?IR=T [Accessed 22 Apr. 2015].

Housh, W. (2015). Build Your Business: Email Marketing. Air Conditioning Heating & Refrigeration News, 254(2), 22.[Accessed 22 Apr. 2015].

Mullen, J. and Daniels, D. (2009). Email marketing. Indianapolis, Ind.: Wiley Pub. [Accessed 22 Apr. 2015].

Neilpatel.com, (2015). How to Write Email Subject Lines That Will Increase Your Open Rate By 203%. [online] Available at: http://neilpatel.com/2014/10/23/how-to-write-email-subject-lines-that-will-increase-your-open-rate-by-203/ [Accessed 22 Apr. 2015].