The last post was a VERY cool one about squeeze pages. After you have it set up and running, and get your first few subscribers, you need to send out emails. Since you signed up with AWeber and Get Response, you can send out whatever you want, whenever you want, right? Wrong. Even if their IPs are usually whitelisted with email service providers, your email can still land into the SPAM box.

This is only one of the issues. This article will talk about the correct formatting and content you should be sending out.

The Subject Line

This is the first thing that they will be seeing (both the ESPs and the readers), so make that work in your favour.

Did you know that “Click here” is one of the trigger phrases that can get your email sent directly to the SPAM folder? Do a search for “email marketing trigger words” on Google and you will find several lists of words and phrases you should avoid to use.

We are all bombarded with emails in our inbox..which brings us to my next point: Be different. Let’s face it, we only bother opening emails from either people we personally know or the subject line that just feels right. Be that subject line. Ask a question, make a counter-intuitive statement, be very specific and in some cases, be very broad (ex. “You will never even THINK of that”).

Don’t be a robot

People don’t like it when they are just “blasted” an email. Instead they want to be written an email. The difference is the ‘From’ field. I would prefer receiving an email from ‘Gyna Jones’ than from ‘BSDY Marketing’.

Brand the email

..even if you just use plain text! If you send your email using HTML, then try to create a frame around your email. Don’t want to get fancy? That’s fine too, just have your business logo at the top or bottom of the email.

You don’t like HTML and use only plain text? Here is a cool customization:

***Thanks for reading!***

Simple, 1 line. But if consistently used, your users will get familiar with it.

Personalization

While everyone just says “Do it!”, I say it depends on the niche. In a gardening niche product for example, it looks really cool when someone opens his email to see “Hey Tom!”. However, let’s say you are offering an advanced email marketing course and your delivery is being made via email. The people on your list will know that “Hey Jerry” is just a nice feature of AWeber. If you actually visit the popular internet marketing boards, you will see that some people are actually upset about seeing their first name in emails, as they take it that the marketer is “conning” them or trying to be friendly when they are not their friend.

If you are confused right now, just forget about the last paragraph and read this: “As long as you are outside the Internet marketing niche, personalize your greetings. If you are in the IM niche, think about how advanced the people on your list are. The more advanced they are, the less you should consider using personalized greetings.”

Have a call to action in the middle of your email copy

You can actually have more. Truth is, many people won’t read your entire email, no matter how good a writer you think you are. Most of them just want to spend their time on the other tab, which is on their Facebook friend’s wall. If you want to direct them to a webpage, make sure that your hyperlinked call to action is not only at the bottom, but also in the middle, and maybe even right after the 1st paragraph.

Accurate call to action

While “Click here” is good, you may want to use other call to actions (remember, you have 2 or more opportunities to place them in the email!). If you are giving them a free report, “Download it here” or “Gain instant access” might work. If it’s a video or presentation, “Watch it now” would sound good.

With one of my tests, I found out that more of my subscribers clicked when I wrote “CLICK HERE” instead of “Click here”. So if you have a substantial number of subscribers, you may consider split testing to see what works best for you.

Squeeze squeeze

Let’s copy this strategy from your squeeze page. On the squeeze page, you are trying to sell them your offer in exchange of their contact info. In your email, you are probably trying to sell them a free report containing your affiliate links. What cool feature do you use on your squeeze page? BULLET POINTS!

I don’t understand why I don’t see this more often in my inbox. Afterall, marketers are trying to convey the value, right? What’s a better way than bullet points? Use them!

Proper formatting

No large chunk of text please! Small paragraphs, maybe 2 sentences each will do perfectly fine. If you can, use relevant images. Break it up and down, make it easy on your readers’ eyes. Unless your subscribers are literature addicts, they will NOT read if they see large blocks of text. Actually, after 2 or 3 more scary emails like this, they might look for the unsubscribe button.

Resources

After you’ve delivered them the content, there is nothing wrong in having a “Resource” at the end of your email with 3 – 5 lines each promoting a product you have (or an affiliate product). Just make sure you are not sending out ONLY 3 lines with 3 promotions! They never got on your list for that. Give them what they want, and some will buy from you just because you make their lives easier.

Isn’t that a wonderful way to do business?

CAN-SPAM Rules & Regulations

Respect them, to comply with everyone, including the U.S. laws! You can have a good read of the regulations here: http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus61-can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business

You can really get into trouble if a subscriber decides to escalate what you thought was “okay to send”. The page is short anyway, so get educated before diving into any mess!

A few words from me

Woah! Believe it or not, but I wrote this post in one sitting, NON-stop and writing down everything that crossed my head during these 30 minutes. I hope it’s not to messy and everything is easy for you to read and digest…AND APPLY!

See you in the next post!