In the direct marketing arena, email is surely the best thing that has happened since bulk mailing rates were introduced. The cost involved with sending thousands or even millions of sales letters by email is almost negligible, when compared to the cost of mounting a similar direct marketing campaign through traditional ground mail.
Yet direct marketing by email can be dangerous territory for those who are not armed with at least some knowledge of the rules, guidelines, and accepted methods involved. As little as one poorly designed email campaign can seriously damage your credibility with potential customers.
A single campaign that is poorly or unethically distributed will likely produce little to no sales, and may even result in serious negative consequences and personal financial loss.
Here are some accepted guidelines and a few tips that we suggest you put into use in your direct email campaigns.
Rule #1 – Avoid spam at all costs! Any email message that you send to someone who did not specifically request information from you can be considered Spam, or UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email.)
Although the temptation may be great to send your sales message to any and every email address you can find, be aware that this practice can, and probably will result in the loss of ISP and webhosting service. You may also be subjected to legal charges and financial backlash from anyone who has been harmed by your activity.
Rule #2 – Choose two to four keywords that reflect the benefits of your offer, and weave them into an eye-opening headline. Internet users have become somewhat numb to email offers, partly because of the huge influx of spam messages that flood the bandwidth daily.
This makes it even more important to introduce your legitimate offer with a compelling headline. Keep in mind that the subject header in most inboxes is comparatively small. Limit your headline to 50 characters and spaces or less, while delivering an attention getting punch.
Rule #3 – Use the current date and a greeting line in your sales message. Many mailing programs enable the insertion of the recipients name. Use this feature to personalize your message and make your reader feel you are writing directly to her.
Rule #4 – Format the body of your message to be neat and easily read. Few if any people will attempt to read a dark and tangled mass of fonts. Limit your lines to 60 characters and hold your paragraphs to three or four sentences. Use extra white space between your paragraphs for added ease in reading.
Rule #5 – Use capitalized subheadings throughout your message to draw attention to specific points that you want to make about your product or offer. Keep in mind that few people will read your message word-for-word. Make it easy for them to notice the most critical points.
Rule #6 – Stress the benefits of your product. Explain how it will solve a problem, make a tiresome task more efficient, increase sales, reduce risk, give pleasure and comfort, afford pride of ownership.
Features are great. But chances are that your reader will not give a whit how many gizmos are tacked on. She wants to know exactly how your product or service will be of benefit in her own life.
Rule #7 – Use bulleted lists to display the benefits of your offer. Many readers are skimmers and will only see the highlighted portion of your message. A bulleted list can quickly explain the benefits of your product, and why the reader should respond your offer.
Rule #8 – Simplify your wording and make your point in direct and clear language. Avoid making your reader run for a dictionary to understand your message. Remember, you are composing a sales message, not writing a novel.
Rule #9 – Proofread your message for grammatical and spelling errors prior to distribution. An easy way to do this is to compose your message in Microsoft Word. You will be alerted to possible errors by red or green squiggled lines.
Rule #10 – End your message with a signature line and a valid email contact or URL to your website. This will relieve fear and mistrust in your reader. She will be more likely to regard you as a sincere businessperson, and less likely to mistake you for just another spammer hiding behind an anonymous email address.
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Dan B. Cauthron runs several websites and publishes his 100%
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