10 Tips For Effective Email Lists

Here are 10 tips for making your mailing list emails more effective and more likely to be opened by your readers.

1. Make the subject line interesting.

People are in a hurry, so even if they like you and want to read your email, they may not feel like it at the moment they see it in their inbox. If you make that subject line tempting enough, they will have the impulse to open it now.

2. Send when everyone opens their email.

People tend to read email first thing in the morning every weekday. That means that you should send your email first thing in the morning, maybe even 4am. That gets you in front of them when they are concentrating on their inbox.

3. Don’t send when everyone else sends their email.

Since first thing in the morning is when everyone else is sending email, you might want to try sending it in the afternoon, just to stand out. You might catch some attention for being out of the ordinary.

4. Don’t send email on the weekend.

No one reads email on the weekend. Well, I do, but that’s me. Most people are out living their lives and doing things in the real world. Never send email on a weekend. You will have no response.

5. Always include a call to action.

Why are you sending the email? Usually, you want the recipient to do something. Come to my web site. Check out my new product. Read my witty blog post. Tell them what you want them to do. Do that now. Click here for more info!

6. Be brief and easy to skim.

No one has time to read your entire email. They will tend to skim through it, so give it headlines that stand out. Make bullet points that are easy to read. Make it short and to the point.

7. Use [brackets] around an identifier in the subject.

It’s become a convention to put the list name or some brand identifier in the subject line of every email that you send. It should be short. It should have square brackets around it to set it apart in the list of email in the inbox. [Walton] is what starts all of my emails. You know instantly who it’s from and probably what it’s about.

8. Send both HTML and Text versions.

I know that you love those cute backgrounds and pretty colors, but some of us still prefer to get our email in plain old text. It’s easier to read. There are no formatting problems. You should always send email in both HTML and text formats, so each type of person gets what they want.

9. Write for your readers.

The subject of all of your emails should be on one topic and that topic should be the one that your readers are interested in. It’s nice to throw in personal stories or wander a bit, but if your readers want to know about a specific subject, tell them about it.

10. Send email on a regular schedule.

People like routines and knowing what to expect. You should schedule your emails to always be sent on a regular schedule. Some lists that I’m on send an email every day. Some do it twice a week. Others are every other week. I’m used to that and I read them when they get here. Don’t surprise anyone, or you might get ignored. Sending email more often if better than sending it less often. Twice a week is a nice balance.

Tags: 4am, Bullet Points, Email Lists, Emails, First Thing In The Morning, Headlines, Hurry, Impulse, Inbox, Read Email, Real World, Recipient, Send Email, Sending Email, Square Brackets, Web Site Check, Weekday

This entry was posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 1:51 pm and is filed under marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.