We all know how it feels to be on the receiving end of email marketing. For me it usually looks like this –

delete. delete. delete. Ooh sale at Victoria’s Secret – but still, delete.

So why is it that we still utilize email marketing even though most of us have a similar reaction of “delete” when we see we have 105 emails in our inbox and more than half of those are coupons, newsletters, and sale announcements? Because every now and then we click and we read and we find something useful…and everyone does it because if an email reaches us at a time when we want to read it or don’t want to do whatever it is we’re doing, then it’s a win for the company.

As an email marketer, here are a few tips and tricks to help you out and make sure you’re one of the “nice” email marketers rather than the “blasters” who everyone wants to black list.

1) Timing: People tend to read emails from 6am-9am as well as Noon-2pm. If you’re in the B2C business, then you also have a window of 8pm-Midnight. Now that you have the best hours to send, the best days are: Tuesday-Thursday and, if you’re a B2C company, Saturday.

2) Building Your List: Keep in mind that you should always remember to give people information in the way they want to receive it.

• Free Giveaways
• Free Event
• Contests
• Videos
• Pop-ups (these can be timed for your website)
• Webinars
• Put a “Join My List” button on your website! – 79% of people on your website won’t be ready to buy but giving them an option to stay informed can encourage them to come back and will keep your business at the forefront of their mind when the time arises that they are ready to buy.

Conversion Rate = Web Traffic/# Sign Ups 

Don’t be afraid to ask people if they’d like to join your mailing list BUT be sure that you’re asking them up-front and not automatically adding them if they buy your product. Additionally, of the options above regarding building your list, most should be done in tandem with one another.

3) Creating Your Emails:

• Integrate your emails with your social media channels so people can easily follow you
• Study magazine covers to get good headlines or subject lines. Look at the wording they use and see how you can tweak it just a bit so that it works with your product or service.
• There’s a 60/40 split between people who want full articles in the emails versus summaries and a link to the full article on your site. However, the purpose of your emails is to make a sale so be sure you’re including links and driving traffic to your site.
• If you use links, use strategic landing pages so the page that readers land on directly correlate with the content they were reading when they clicked through the link.
• Use the guideline of 5:1 content to promotions. You should have more emails with informational content than you do emails with promotions or sales. You build lasting customers and brand ambassadors through content your readers are interested in, not through weekly sales.

4) Frequency: Weekly emails are a suggested maximum with monthly emails being a suggested minimum. This can vary but just ask yourself:

• How many emails would I want to receive?
• When would I start getting annoyed and deleting emails?
• How many would be too many?
• How many would it take to keep the company name at the forefront of my mind?

These are all general guidelines but they can help you build your list, keep your list, and convert readers into buyers.