You’re working on using email in your marketing, you are growing a great list of customers and now you want to stay in touch with them regularly.
You know that your content is great, but you also know that it’s hard to break through the many obstacles that stop your messages being read by your list of customers.
Obstacles like:-
- Spam filters that send your emails into Junk Mail folders
- Overflowing inboxes where most of the emails get deleted without being read
- Getting the attention of your readers so that they open the email
How can you break through these obstacles and give your emails the best chance of getting seen… emails that your customers want to read?
#1: Spam Filters
There are ways of avoiding your email being flagged up as spam… avoid using words like “free” or talking about “Great Savings” etc in both the subject line and the body of the email.
Spam filters scan the email content and award it a score based on how many (or few) of these “hot” words or phrases are used. If the “hot” words or phrases recur too often, the score goes above a pre-determined limit and the email is flagged up as spam, and may never reach its destination.
Scores vary between each spam filter provider but it is worthwhile to run your email through a good spam checker, AWeber has a built in Spam checker or you could use one like Contactology.com before you send, then you can make amendments if it looks like its in danger of being marked as spam and not reaching inboxes.
# 2: Overflowing Inboxes
We can’t do much about this barrier… we’re all facing email overwhelm… but if we’ve taken care of the first barrier, we can increase the chances of our emails being noticed by paying close attention to barrier number 3…
# 3: Attention Getting Subject Lines
Keep your subject lines short… the recommended maximum characters is 70, (I favour less) but in fact, if your recipients is reading your emails on their mobiles, then your maximum characters reduce even more… to 20!
The maximum character limit allows the full subject line to be seen when recipients are scanning their inbox deciding which emails to open. Be creative… keep the subject lines short and snappy, and don’t use convoluted subject lines.
Make sure your readers know who has sent them the email too… whether to use your personal name or the business name will depend on your market and audience.
So now you know how to increase the chances of your emails getting through to your audience, what content can you share with them today?
Email works as a great marketing tool, if used correctly it will keep your customers coming back to you time and time again.
Apply these strategies to the next email you send to your list… then come back to this blog post and leave me a comment. If you have any tips you use for getting your emails seen by more people, I’d love to hear those also?
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