Email Marketing and Web Communication: Ten Key Tips to Get Your Messages
Read by Ross Storey
There's an old saying 'Manners maketh the man (or woman)' and this still applies
in the 21st Century, even though everything now seems to happen twice as fast.
Most people respond much better if you treat them respectfully. People
appreciate being spoken to politely and you can definitely include consumers
here. Yes, if you are into Internet marketing, it may be a hi-tech world, where
bits and bytes circle the globe in the blinking of an eye, but people still
respond better to being spoken to as a friendly equal. This particularly goes
for language in advertisements.
Here are some important things to remember when you are emailing someone with a
sales pitch.
1.DON'T YELL WITH CAPITALS: By all means use 'caps' in your message to
highlight key points, but don't write whole sentences in capitals. This is the
online equivalent of screaming in someone's ear. Bolding key points is a much
better alternative to capitalizing.
2.Be TIDY With FORMATTING: I read a lot of sales emails every day, and it never
ceases to amaze me how so many email 'salespeople' - perhaps we can call them
'e-sellers' - don't bother to properly 'dress up' their email messages. There
are many available email message formatting systems available, like
Formatit.com, which you can use to make your emails presentable, and very
likely, more profitable. Line breaks, you see, behave badly in cyberspace, and,
although your email may look fine as you type it, the message could have line
breaks all over the place, when it's received. Sloppy presentation like this,
sends out a clear message that does not favour people buying from you. Any
sloppy line breaks are hard to read. An ideal line length is about 50 - 60
spaces.
3.Write Your Ads Like You're SPEAKING to an INDIVIDUAL: When you email someone
you are, in effect, striking up a conversation with them. You are hoping
they'll take the time to 'listen'. A little bit of humour, a little bit of your
own personal style, will not go astray in your message. Be friendly and be
polite. Emails that are abrupt or too direct, can be read as insulting or
critical.
4.Say PLEASE and THANK You a Lot: As a web marketer, I always start my messages
by thanking people for 'clicking in' to my message. After all, they have taken
the trouble to open my email, ahead of possibly tens or even hundreds of
others, who they have not bothered to open. I always thank them for their
trouble. I know that when people are polite and thank me, I always feel better
towards them and welcome the respect.
5.Keep Your email Ads PUNCHY and SHORT: Email, by nature, is a time-saving
tool. It's quick and it's to the point. Keep you message to the point and don't
try to cram too many 'sales pitches' in the one email. It's very unlikely that
people will read the whole thing from top to bottom, so keep your selling to
six paragraphs or so. This is for emails you may be sending to a safelist. If
you are emailing your regular mailing list, perhaps with you newsletter, then
you can afford to follow the regular format, which may be quite long. This is
because you newsletter subscribers generally know what to expect because they
hopefully have read more than one edition.
6.ENTICE Your Readers to READ to the BOTTOM: If you want to send a longer than
usual e-mail sales pitch, it's good strategy to put a paragraph in, near the
top, saying something like 'If you read to the bottom of this email, you'll
find a great no cost download'. Teasers like this are very effective and may
even prompt readers to immediately scroll down to the bottom to check out what
they can get.
7.AVOID the Word FREE in Your Message: Why, because the spam filters will get
you. While FREE might be the most attractive word in email marketing, it's also
one of those that spam filters will likely detect to block your message. You
need to be a bit creative. Instead of FREE, why not use words like 'no cost,
'gratis' 'give-away', 'gift' or 'bonus'.
8.AVOID Too Many SYMBOLS: Those of us old enough to remember cartoon comic
strips, will remember how cartoonists often used symbols to show a character
'swearing'. Such as, 'Why You #@!*' Too many symbols in your message could have
the same effect - making your message confusing and unfriendly to readers. Use
symbols sparingly and to draw attention to important points.
9.DON'T Have Too Many BLOCK Paragraphs: Although grammar purists will tell you
that paragraphs can have many sentences, so long as they are on the same topic,
use short paragraphs of only one or two sentences. Short is better, because
these days, people do not want to read great slabs of text - they will simply
tune out. You can also highlight key points in your sales message, simply by
isolating them in one lonely sentence.
10.EMAIL People As You Would Like THEM to Email YOU: This sounds a bit
biblical, but really the same applies in general life. Try to put yourself in
the reader's shoes after you've finished your message. Would you like to have
such an email sent to your in-box. Would you find such an email polite and
friendly? If anything 'jolts' as you read your own email, make sure you soften
it with further friendly communication.
You will likely find that showing some 'manners' in your email communications,
will translate into greater profits and more buyers. Thank you very much for
reading this article and best wishes to you in your endeavors.
About the Author
Ross Storey is a 52-year-old public relations and marketing consultant who has
been involved in web marketing and design for more than a decade.
http://bestwebcopy.zapz.biz http://www.quokkasoft.com
http://bestprographics.zapz.biz
(Copyright 2005 Ross Storey - Please feel free to publish this article, so
long as you keep this resource section complete)
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