Naturally, this is far easier said than done. After all, very few of us enjoy receiving marketing and sales solicitations in our personal inboxes, just as we don’t spend an afternoon with someone trying to sell us a timeshare without the promise of reduced-rate hotel accommodations and free continental breakfasts. Clearly, the key is offering something that the recipients actually want. Not necessarily free products (although that certainly helps), but relevant information, tips and disclosures of special services of which they wouldn’t be aware without your updates.

Notice we said “wouldn’t be aware [of] without your updates.” This does not include reminders that your business exists, or follow-throughs about previous email communications. If you sent an email alerting your customers about a sale or a deal, don’t send additional emails about the same sale or deal. Likewise for emails about newsletters, blogs or any other alert, because…

No one wants an inbox full of marketing emails – pare them down.

Even if – by some remote possibility – all of your email communications alert subscribers to completely different deals and services, you run the risk of your customers shutting down from the glut of information. Basically, when your email count exceeds one or two per day, the recipients begin to view your emails as a nuisance. Even if your emails describe valuable services, if you’re the type of organization that constantly sends marketing emails, the recipients won’t view the services described in those emails as being special or anything that would necessitate instant action.

It is also critically important that whatever emails you’ve sent contain beneficial, interesting or useful information, regardless of how many you choose to send, since…

Emails that present no benefit to the recipient will be disregarded. Give them value.

If you’ve made it a habit to send causal email updates or requests that your subscribers follow you on one of your innumerable social networking sites, your subscribers will learn that your emails do not provide valuable content. Where are the sales? Where are the notifications of new services? Where are the alerts to new merchandise in stock? Have you provided tips on how your products might be used effectively? These are examples of alerts that merit email notifications, since they are what consumers want. If consumers consistently get emails reiterating the same information about your business, products or services, they will come to believe that none of your emails say anything relevant. Speaking of relevance…

Expand beyond simple descriptions of sales.

Content is key, and while it is important to delineate what special services you have to offer, it is also important to occasionally expand into well-constructed and pertinent information, specific to your customers’ needs and desires. If you are a local plumber, for example, you might occasionally offer tips on inexpensive home maintenance techniques that will help customers reduce the likelihood of expensive replacements and services. However, you have to mete out your content judiciously; as we’ve said, overabundant emails will have the opposite of the desired effect.

Test their effectiveness.

Do your customers check their emails on their personal computers or on mobile devices? Which browsers will they likely use? Are they Mac users? Do they live in rural or urban environments? The answers to all of these questions will determine whether or not your email strategies will be effective, and you can test them by using segmentation analysis and email marketing analytics tools.

Make your emails specific.

Don’t treat your email marketing strategies like your social media strategies. In other words, blanket sales pitches don’t work. If you are having a sale on ballet flat shoes, you’d better make sure that the subscribers to whom you’ve sent the notification would be interested – sending an email message about such a sale to men who are uninclined to buy or wear women’s shoes could lead to a mass of “unsubscribe” requests.

Quality will always be more important than quantity. Your email marketing strategy has to do more than get your business’ name out there – it has to speak to your potential customers clearly and effectively. Customers have to do more than tolerate your email communications in order to stay subscribed; they have to like them and – most importantly – need them.

Younger consumers are becoming increasingly wary of social media marketing – they don’t want their Facebook feeds bombarded by ad campaigns, and aren’t actively following businesses on their social media platforms. In fact, they prefer to keep business sequestered to email accounts. According to VoxBurner, a youth marketing and analytics organization, social media users between the ages of 16 and 24 simply don’t want to communicate with most businesses via social media. Sure, hip and fun clothing retailers and restaurants can benefit from social media activity – but financial institutions and dental practices? Not so much.

Email marketing can communicate a brand’s message directly, and has a significantly higher return on investment. The organic reach of the Facebook newsfeed is only at approximately 6 percent and declining, and click-through rates for Facebook and Twitter are even lower. Email marketing rates, however, are at nearly 30 percent.

But… unfortunately, it isn’t that simple. A sloppy email marketing campaign will obviously do more harm than good. No one wants to be bombarded with pointless marketing emails, and if you’ve spent money on an email list that only results in you getting shunted off into spam email folders, you’ve not only wasted money on the list, you’re going to continue to hemorrhage money attempting to save yourself. How does a brand keep its targets engaged? By avoiding the following easy email marketing pitfalls.

1. Poorly constructed subject line.

Subject lines that are in all caps, make overabundant use of punctuation, repeat who the email is from or make promises that seem absurd to a reasonable person won’t serve your purposes, which are – presumably – to get your emails opened. Unless you have been overwhelmed by your own success.

Generalized, overly pushy and spammy-sounding subject lines will always be ignored. By failing to communicate how the recipient will benefit from the content of the email, not only will the email remain unopened, but you run the risk of your emails being routed to the dreaded junk-mail folder.

2. Untargeted email lists.

There are those who believe that purchasing targeted email lists is a legitimate route to increased revenue. After all, the targeting has all been done, right? These are the email addresses of people who will definitely be interested in what you have to offer, right? Wrong!
Opt-in email lists for purchase don’t exist – every email address on any list-for-sale that purports to be “opt-in” has been unsolicited. The only way to gather legitimately targeted, opt-in email addresses from future customers is to feature a widget on your site asking viewers to voluntarily subscribe to your emails.

Why spend time, energy and money sending thousands of emails into a harsh void, where recipients aren’t necessarily interested in your services or even exist? Why risk your entire email marketing campaign sending out emails that could threaten your ability to successfully deliver messages to inboxes?

3. Non-responsive design.

A huge segment of the population now checks their emails on their mobile devices, and failure to design your emails in an accommodating way will only cause people to delete your missives. Not what you want.

Make sure that your emails can be appreciated not only on PCs, but also tablets, and smartphones – and possibly Google Glass.

4. Pointless content.

Don’t send emails just to remind the world that you exist; actually have something to offer that will be attractive and useful to your potential customers. This not only includes the obvious (sales, promotional services, new items and giveaways), but also links to blog posts and newsletters that might be beneficial to customers due to the useful tips, hacks and recipes.

Also, if your email is composed in an aggressively advertise-y and impersonal manner, you could turn off the customers you’re trying so hard to engage. Structure your emails in a readable, personal and aesthetically pleasing way.

When it comes to email marketing, yes – you have to do your research and continually scrutinize data and analytics, but at the end of the day, just ask yourself if you would open your own email, and if you did, would you read it? If the answer is no, you’ve got work to do.

While accomplishing either of the goals above may be a bonus, neither one is as important as the singular objective of any email marketing campaign: delivering verifiable results.

Results are All That Matters

To test the theory above, let’s investigate whether beautiful design is the most important factor. Consider Craigslist, quite possibly the world’s ugliest website. Is it boring to look at and drenched in plain purple-fonted drabness? Absolutely. Is it an extremely popular site that will likely set a new revenue record for 2014 at over $335 billion? You bet! Turns out beauty is in the eye of the beholder (or the holder of Craigslist’s reins).

Or what about the notoriously annoying, low-rent HeadOn homeopathic headache medication commercials? While the ads look like they were produced as a middle school art project in a 1990s computer lab, they had quite a powerful effect: this ridiculous commercial boosted sales by 50 percent, perhaps thanks to the numerous parody videos and pop culture mockery that it spawned.

Cutting Through the Static

It’s easy to get bogged down in a boatload of conflicting advice about what makes a great email marketing campaign. But at the end of the day, as the examples above prove, what matters most of all is results. Spending loads of cash on an expensive graphic designer or witty copywriter may result in a classy, clever campaign, but will it boost your sales?

A few surefire tips for getting the results you’re looking for include:

• Personalization: Be sure you’re not sending out an epic fail instead of an engaging email by avoiding the dreaded “Dear Sir/Madam” approach. Use the smart insights you’re collecting to target emails by location and business type, and be sure to include a personal salutation.
• Timing: Don’t alienate your subscribers by bombarding them with billions of boring blasts or make them forget you by failing to maintain your correspondence. Finding the sweet spot between too much and not enough is one key to delivering powerful email marketing results.
• Great Graphics: While the examples we looked at earlier show that beauty may be only skin deep, it doesn’t mean you should ignore design entirely. Be sure you test graphics in multiple browsers, offer a plain text option, and use smart graphics – but sparingly – to achieve maximum impact (and click throughs!).

Don’t get bogged down in the land of misplaced priorities when designing and implementing your next email marketing campaign. Focus on what matters most – results – and consider the tips above to deliver maximum impact.

Think you can go it alone without investing in the ‘Book? Well, a large portion of your fellow marketers think you’re wrong. In fact, according to statistics from the State of Inbound Marketing report, 42 percent of marketers believe Facebook to be “critical or important” to their operations. If you aren’t investing in Facebook, you are missing the boat.

So how can you include Facebook in your email marketing efforts? Here are a few clever ways to marry your marketing efforts to the social media MVP:

1. Track High-Performing Status Updates and Include in Emails

Facebook’s handy insights offer you excellent information about how your status updates and posts are performing. Notice a particularly high-performing post? Why not include that information in an upcoming email blast in order to maximize its impact? You could even do this the opposite way and post information that performed especially well in email blasts on your social channels.

2. Announce Teasers on Facebook to Incite Email Subscriptions

Give followers a bit of an ego boost by making them feel especially “in the know” about upcoming events that will be announced via email. Use Facebook to tempt followers to subscribe to your email list by dropping hints about upcoming big announcements that will only be available to email subscribers.

3. Promote Facebook Contests via Email

Running a Facebook photo contest or other promotional scheme? Use your email lists to entice readers to join you on social media by sharing this information with them directly in their inboxes. This is a great way to boost participation in social contests and increase open rates on your email marketing blasts.

4. Test Your Timing

Again, Facebook’s insights will give you valuable information about how the time that you post an update impacts its performance. Use that information to help you time email blasts. Conversely, your email marketing software will give you vital data about how timing really is everything; use that data to boost your social media performance on Facebook.

Don’t miss the boat by ignoring Facebook and its hugely powerful potential to impact your marketing efforts. Consider the tips above to make it work with your email marketing plans and double your impact!

1. Sending From a No-Reply Email Address

Despite repeated attempts to eradicate this useless species from the general email population, it continues to show a remarkable survival instinct. Sending from a no-reply email address is like draping your message in jungle camouflage: a major no-no that makes it very difficult to see by your intended targets!

Jane Badall Tip: You should welcome replies from your readers in order to indicate that you actually care!

2. Boring Design

Poorly executed, generic designs are the invasive species of the email marketing jungle: everyone wants to eliminate them! If you’re sending out humdrum missives or worse – downright ugly ones – you might as well send out nothing at all!

Jane Badall Tip: Get smart with your email marketing designs and watch your campaigns flourish!

3. Boring Subject Lines

A boring subject line is a sure-fire way to get your email marketing campaign relegated to the trash folder faster than a conservationist will confiscate an elephant gun! “Hello Readers” and “Our Latest News” are both boring and generic – they don’t make busy email readers want to click through. Things to avoid: the word FREE (triggers spam filters) and classic bait-and-switch promises.

Jane Badall Tip: Keep subject lines personal and timely and include geographic personalization for higher open rates.

4. Missing Out on Mobile

It’s a jungle out there, and 69 percent of its inhabitants are reading their emails on smartphones. Are you sending out beautifully designed emails that get lost in translation on mobile devices? If so, your readers may be missing your message, like trying to spot gorillas in the mist.

Jane Badall Tip: Be sure your email marketing campaign is mobile optimized, and give your subscribers the option to view it on a mobile device.

Thanks for joining me on this safari into the wilds of email marketing mistakes and disasters. I hope it’s been an informative and insightful journey. It’s time for me to retreat back into the bush, where I’ll continue fighting the good fight to catch-and-release the best examples of email marketing gone bad in the hopes of ridding the planet of this invasive species forever!

Don’t get us wrong – we don’t mean that you should abandon your marketing efforts or, for that matter, your dreams; we mean that all fantastic digital marketing triumphs occur from incremental strategies that are rigorously tested and conscientiously developed. Here are four tips that will help you to create a foundation for a truly noteworthy email marketing campaign.

1. Content optimization.

This certainly isn’t new; everyone from Matt Cutts to the lowliest social media intern will tell you that content is everything. Unfortunately, getting David Sedaris to guest-blog for you is more than a little improbable. So, what can you do to develop rich and interesting content?
Be persistent with new content generation. If you blog, micro-blog and post images regularly (not necessarily hourly, but enough so that your content doesn’t generate the sound of crickets), you will begin to encourage viewers and even enthusiasm. Unfortunately, this is all but impossible for business blogs. Why? Because whenever a blog speaks as a business entity, it speaks for the purpose of generating sales and remaining blandly acceptable to the vast majority of consumers. There is rarely anything unique; almost never anything controversial. So, if you’re a business looking to engage an audience, reach out to successful people within (or tangential to) your industry and conduct an interview for the purpose of posting on your site. This creates the unique perspective that sparks interest.

2. Perks for repeat customers.

Everyone wants to feel special. When a customer has shown loyalty to your business or brand, don’t you think that merits a little extra attention? Your answer will probably be an accurate reflection of how devoted your customers are to you.

Repeat customers are valuable customers. Make sure that you acknowledge their importance by offering them unique deals, sales and discounts, as well as first dibs on new products or services. When you give your subscribers a reason to be loyal, they will be.

3. Check your email service provider.

Your emails won’t engender discussion or enthusiasm if your subscribers don’t get them. When you decide on an email service provider, make sure you research the deliverability rate. If you suspect that your emails aren’t reaching their targets, you’ll want to test your service, pronto.

When researching ESPs for your email campaign, ask the following questions: Does your ESP provide a dedicated or static IP address for your bulk mailings? Does it throttle (stagger) outgoing messages? Are messages authenticated and protected against being consider spam by ISPs? Is there a “retry” feature?

4. Regular service or purchase updates.

If you give annual or semi-annual reminders for service updates or repurchases, you might find that your subscribers are quite receptive. If you had your oil changed six months ago and got an email reminder for your next service, wouldn’t you be more likely to schedule a service than if you were left with only your own memory?

The only real conversation you want your customers and subscribers to engage in is a conversation about how fantastic your service and products are. When you dedicate your email marketing strategy to optimizing customer experience, you give yourself the tools to create the best and most profitable kind of conversation possible.

There are only so many phrases we can wedge into a call-to-action button, and frankly, these phrases are beginning to seem a bit trite and worn from overuse. Unfortunately, we are largely stuck with them, since radically different terms might only confuse the customers we’re trying to entice. Nevertheless, consumer expectation doesn’t necessarily dictate whether or not we can make subtle changes, and those subtle changes can often make a world of difference.

But, why would customers really care about how the calls-to-action (CTA) are composed? Isn’t it enough to describe what the buttons do and what the viewer will accomplish by clicking them? You’d be surprised that conversion rates actually do hinge on the way CTAs are phrased.

Cost for value.

The key to successful CTAs is the ability to communicate both benefit and relevance. In order to convey benefit and relevance, it is important to be specific about what the viewer will receive upon clicking the button, as opposed to a mere explanation of what the viewer is supposed to do. If there are advantages that exist beyond what the CTA indicates, make sure that those advantages are clear. If your succinctly-worded CTA fails to capture most of the reasons why the viewer should act, then rephrase it. For example, if the page offers items at a significantly reduced price, instead of saying “Add to Cart” when you want your customers to buy, you might restructure the offer to include the cost reduction: “Save 30 % – Add to Cart”

Speak to customers; don’t bark at them.

Hyper-enthusiasm has its merits – when you’re working towards finding a cure for a chronic disease, building a house, training military recruits or working with children, being excited about your task is an incredibly valuable asset. Nevertheless, there is a subtlety required in salesmanship, and aggressive pursuit of a sale is generally considered unappealing.

CTAs that are phrased like commands tend to turn consumers off. While a sense of urgency is essential, “Buy Now!” is an order, whereas “Add to bag” is much more of a suggestion; a soft sell. “Download!” is quite aggressive, while “Free e-book” is much more enticing.

Hyperlink vs. button graphic – which will work for your strategy?

While some could argue for an eye-catching CTA graphic for email marketing campaigns, it might not be the optimal choice for every type of campaign.

Hyperlinks, while not exceptionally vibrant, could be better for emails that are meant to be graphically minimalist – like a personal communication. An obviously sales-y CTA could work against the image you’re trying to communicate. A hyperlink isn’t particularly stylish, but it won’t undo the personal capital you’ve built through your individualized approach.

However, button graphics do have their place – if your email is already graphically oriented, you might need a vibrant CTA button just to give the viewer his or her bearings.CTAs shouldn’t remain stagnant; they should be updated regularly to reflect not only consumer demand but also brand identity. Take a moment to reassess your CTAs and their effectiveness.

Small businesses that are beginning their digital marketing journeys can glean fantastic results from a solid email marketing strategy. While email marketing might seem – to the unenlightened – like an archaic tool, it is actually a very cost effective resource for businesses that thrive on personal attention. But don’t social media platforms offer personal attention? Perhaps, but they aren’t as effective as email marketing in the following categories.

1. Higher conversion rates than social media marketing strategies.

Although Facebook marketing is a highly touted and cherished marketing solution, many businesses are finding that it is rapidly losing luster. While it is important to have a solid social media presence in order to remain relevant to consumers, it shouldn’t be relied upon to take the place of email marketing for businesses who need high conversion rates.

Email marketing drives far more click-through rates than social media. According to research from The Direct Marketing Association, email marketing offers conversion rates that are 40 times higher than those from Facebook or Twitter.

2. Personalized communications.

Email marketing presents unique opportunities to customize your communications. Using the right strategy can engage consumers in a far more effective way than through social media alone. With well-optimized email marketing, you can speak directly to your customers, and offer deals and services that they would specifically want.

3. Get useful feedback.

Email marketing offers fantastic tracking opportunities: what strategies cause the most recipients to open the emails; which yield the most click-throughs; which result in the most sales, etc.

4. Encourage offline purchases.

If you are a brick-and-mortar service, you can entice local customers to visit your shop and make purchases directly. Sometimes, items need to be seen in person and tested before customers can be enticed to buy. Many customers feel that large and large-ticket items, like furniture, often need to be inspected personally before they should be bought.

5. Facilitates cross-selling and upgrades

When you use email marketing, you can follow-up with email notifications of complementary items that the customer might find useful. If your customer has purchased lawn and garden equipment, for example, perhaps they would be interested in investing in some lawn furniture once the landscaping has been finished. If you’ve got a new and advanced lawn tool in stock, you can notify purchasers of the old one.

While it is true that social media has changed the landscape of personal and business communications, it is also true that everyone with social media accounts also has to have an email account backing them up. Speaking directly to your consumers through email marketing offers the very best return on investment of any digital marketing strategy, so if you want to optimize your overall web presence, email marketing is an excellent place to start.

Rather than thinking of social media and email marketing as two entirely separate entities, smart marketers knows that using these two very different tools together can accomplish a great deal. Here are a few tips for combining social media and email marketing for a one-two punch of smart marketing mojo!

1. Include Social Icons in Emails

Be sure to offer your email subscribers a quick and easy way to join you on your various social networks by including clickable social media icons in your marketing emails. Not only do these compact and clickable links look nice and amp-up your social cred, but they are also simple and easy ways to entice subscribers to deepen their online relationships with your firm by interacting you on social media. See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

2. Include a “Retweet This!” Shareable Snippet in the Body of an Email

Getting your email subscribers to endorse pieces of your marketing message by re-tweeting it on Twitter is a great way to add value to an email marketing plan. With a quick and easy “Re-tweet This Stat” or “Share on Twitter” icon included with interesting data points of your marketing emails, your readers will actually be joining in on your marketing efforts. How’s that for cooperation?

3. Offer Sharing Incentives

Make your subscribers “an offer they can’t refuse.” Promise something relatively simple and low-cost, like a free eBook download or special digital badge, for “Liking” your Facebook page. These simple incentives can make readers feel part of an exclusive club – which they will be when they join you on social media!

Social media and email marketing don’t have to dwell in different hemispheres. In fact, if you are smart about how you combine the two methods, you may get more bang for your buck in each arena. So make a simple paradigm shift and stop thinking of these two entities as entirely separate marketing realms and begin looking at them as two pieces of the same pie; your email marketing results and social media followings will both grow together!

1. Creative Use of ALT Text or HTML Mosaics

Anyone can add a simple image to a marketing email, but using interesting ALT text designs and HTML mosaics can lend an air of sophistication and simplicity to any design. It turns out many email clients are blocking your beautiful images, so creative marketers are getting around these automatic image filters with stylish ALT text and HTML mosaics that give readers an idea of the image that entices them to let it load. Definitely consider optimizing your emails for images-off viewing to lessen the blow of automatic image blockers in many email clients.

2. Infographics

Why not add an informative and enticing infographic to your fall email marketing campaign? People love infographics for their quick-and-easy distillation of complex information into bite-size pieces. Plus, if you’re looking to maximize your campaign’s impact, infographics are much more likely to be shared via social media for a fashion-forward feasting frenzy!

3. Advanced Personalization

If you want to make your marketing emails as irresistible as the Pumpkin Spice Latte, it’s going to take a little more than a generic “Dear Valued Customer” greeting. Use smart insights to target readers by job function, geographic location, or length of time they’ve been customers. Be sure to use advanced personalization tools to address all readers by their first names in order to entice them to learn more about what you’re offering.

4. Give ‘em GIFs

Animated GIFs are all the rage these days, thanks largely to the popularity of social site Tumblr. These clever little animated images allow you to play a short video image on repeat for maximum impact. Just look at the deliciousness of this eye roll from the queen of all actors, Meryl Streep. Consider including a fun GIF or two in an upcoming email marketing campaign in order to drive home your point with humor while conveying your hipness at the same time. Fall is the season for football, pumpkin carving, and fashion-forward styles like cozy sweaters and sky-high boots. To be sure your email campaigns stay with the times, try adding a few of these fall fads to your next campaign to maximize your messaging impact.