New News for Newsletters

Just listened to an amazing presentation by Dan Zarrella on The Science of Email Marketing and I learned a lot of new information that I believe will help my clients and me be more effective with email marketing. Here are their takeaway messages and my input. Feel free to view the presentation yourself here too.

Takeaway:

1. Businesses are consumers ~ our lives are so integrated that we don’t need to speak to consumers and businesses differently, we simply need to speak to them as people
2. Try sending emails on the weekend ~ based on 9.5 billion email marketing accounts, they have found more people click on newsletters on Saturday and Sunday. Why not try it?
3. Send very early in the morning ~ people have routines with their emails and most often open them first thing in the morning. If you send yours early enough it will be waiting on them to open.
4. Optimize your emails for mobile ~ smartphones have changed the way we work and communicate. Many people, like myself, are checking emails on their phone and not just their computer. Make sure it is readable and still looks good.
5. Use lots of links in your emails ~ make it difficult for people to see the unsubscribe link and make it easy for them to click on the content you want to highlight
6. Include reference information in your emails ~ if you don’t want people to delete or archive it to never see it again, give people some how to’s, be informative, and give them content they will want to refer to again and again
7. Serialize and label your emails ~ abel the topics so they will want to open it. An easy way for people to filter their emails is by the subject line so be sure you are reaching them right off.
8. Give your subscribers special access ~ people want something if they are going to be receiving your content. Make them feel special with deals only in newsletters and remind them that they are VIP.
9. Send email from someone they have heard of ~ essentially, make sure they know it is from you and it’s not spam. If you’re a celeb then make sure you use your name!
10. Don’t be afraid to send too much email ~ this surprised me because I can feel overwhelmed sometimes, but research shows that send 3 or 4 emails a month gets the same response as sending one out every day. If you have a lot of content being generated it is best to send a daily one; if you are blogging daily, send a weekly round up.
11. Your newest subscribers are your best ~ you’re fresh news to them so they will click around and explore, take advantage and give them great content and links they can engage in.
12. Make them want to get your emails ~ if they know they are going to get specials, useful content, and they like you, they will want to get your email!
13. Ask people to follow you, not to share your email ~ people aren’t sharing emails or tweeting them out so much, but you do want them to follow you on Facebook and Twitter; you can add your newsletters there too.

Thanks Dan for those great takeaways…now let’s go rock some emails!