Topic 1: Definition of From Name, From Email and Subject Line
1. From Name – this is the sender name where recipients can see who is the sender of this email, as indicated in red in Figure 1 & 2.
2. From Email – this is the sender email where recipients can see and reply to the sender email, as indicated in blue in Figure 2.
3. Subject Line – this the title of your email message where recipients can grasp the main idea of your email content before open, as indicated in brown in Figure 1 & 2.
Figure 1: From Name and Subject Line as shown in Ms Outlook before open
Figure 2: From Name, From Email and Subject Line as shown in Microsoft Outlook after open
Creating a good From Name
Some tips in creating a good From Name, you have few options below:
• Organization name – every company has a name or even acronym, use it as sender name to show it’s an email from your company.
• Individual name – if you can use the name of a person who has credibility such as CEO in your company, it will increase open rate. You may also consider using name of personal sales rep or account manager for B2B customers. However, if the person name is not known to your recipients, the email from strangers might carry the scent of spam.
• Brand, product & service name – if you have a strong and powerful brand in market (especially FMCG companies), use the brand name because people recognize your brand name rather than your company name.
Creating a good From Email
Some tips in creating a good From Email, you have few options below:
• Generic email address – info[at]abc.com.my and sales[at]company.com are examples of generic email address. If your sender name is your company name, use your company general email address. If you are using brand name as sender name, it’s advisable to create and use a specific generic email address for that product or brand such as brand1[at]company.com.
• Individual or direct email address – james[at]company.com and angela[at]abc.com.my are examples of individual direct email address. Only use this when you are sending using name of personal sales rep or account manager.
• Free Email Service – Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Windows Live Hotmail, AIM Mail are examples of free email service provider. Using conventional free email services (@gmail.com, @hotmail.com, @yahoo.com, etc…) does not feel very ‘official’ and the recipients might not even trust you, thus it is not recommended at all.
Creating a good Subject Line
Some tips in creating a good Subject Line:
• WIIFM – acronym for “What’s in it for me?”. WIIFM marketing is a strategy that is user centered, it is all about YOU. Can you pass the test: Is it worth for me to check out what’s in this email before open? Your subject line must give them a reason to answer a yes. For example, your email campaign won’t work if you send a subject “How to Manage Servers More Effectively” to HR manager, but it will work much better if you send to IT manager.
• Summarize your content — think of the objective of this email message and what you want your recipient to do after reading your email, instead of describing the message. If you are inviting recipient to an event, use “Invitation to Email Marketing Seminar at Hilton Kuala Lumpur on 22nd August 2011″ instead of a plain “Email Marketing Seminar”.
• Precise and compact – use a very specific and compress important and relevant info into the most powerful promise possible. Your subject line must also allow recipient to identify what you are trying to talk about unambiguously.
• Sense of urgency – use urgency and deadlines to drive action, desire, curiosity. For example, you may incorporate keywords like “3 Days Left…”, “5 More Seats Available…”, “First Come First Serve Basis…”, “Order at RM99 for Today Only…”, etc…
• Length – keep your subject line to 50 characters or less including spaces. If your subject line is too long, some email clients might cut-off any characters after 50th.
• Wrong keywords to use – using a spammy keywords could get your email filtered because they tend to trigger spam filters. Example of spammy keywords are like “free”, “once in a life time”, “special promotion”, etc… Two more important tricks that could trigger spam filter:
o email subject lines with all CAPITAL LETTERS
o using more exclamation points than necessary!!!
• Personalization – create email subject line based on your client past purchases or interest. However, some e-marketer found out that personalization of recipient’s name does not significantly help to increase open rates, it’s just a waste of subject line space.
• Test – always test subject lines on a segment of your email list. If you have 10, 000 emails, consider to split it into 5 different lists containing 2000 emails on each list. Send 1st suggested subject line to first 2000 emails and track the open rate, send 2nd suggested subject line to second 2000 email list and compare the open rate, repeat the same for third 2000 email list. From analysis, you can clearly determine which subject line gives you the highest open rate.
Topic 2: Three Essential Parts in Email Message / Content
Headline
Your recipient first impression of your email message is critical. You must be able to grab their attention and engage them to read the rest of the email. Please take note of following when you create a good headline:
• Ask a question – A question can generate curiosity and get your recipient involved in your message. By asking question like “Do you want to be…”, readers tend to have answer in their minds.
• Use How-To – Tell your recipient “How to” do something because people always look for new information.
• It must be true – Your promise must be believable, not sound like too-good-to-be-true.
• AVOID ALL CAPITAL LETTERS – See how hard to read all capital letters phrase? Reader tend to scan your message and they just can’t read fast that way.
Body
Check below for six important elements that are critical to email marketing success, you may choose to include all elements listed below or choose only few that are related to your offer:
• Point out a problem that the prospect has – Your prospects always find ways to solve their problems. You must help the prospect to discover his problem, when the prospect becomes aware of his problems, you have a chance to make a sales.
• Stress benefits rather than features – Put focus on features and show how your reader will benefit from these features, then solve their problems. Try to help them with your product rather than sell them.
• Unique selling point – What makes you so different from your competitors? Unique selling point (USP) defines your competitive advantage, it is something which sets your product or service apart from your competitors’ in the eyes of your prospects. Example of USP: Federal Express (FedEx): “Federal Express: When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.”; Domino’s Pizza: “You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less — or it’s free.”
• No-risk guarantee – Include a no-risk guarantee into your email content. Example: 100% Money Back Guarantee, No Risk with Guaranteed 30 Days Trial, 60 Days Money-Back Satisfaction Guarantee, etc…
• Client list and Testimonials – Including testimonials from satisfied clients into your email message is one way to increase your credibility. A prospect who see some big names in market that you work with will begin to trust you more. You may also narrate your past client success case study. It really does the trick to impress your prospects.
Conclusion
• Call to action – Having a good call to action in your email message is crucial to encourage your prospects to act immediately. Use the following techniques to create a call to action:
o Give clear instruction – Tell your prospects clearly how and when to contact you. Do you want them to call a specified number? Or just reply email? Or click on a link to register? Or print out your email and bring it to your store?
o State a deadline – Give them a limited time to respond or this special offer would end on the stated date. Example: Order before 20th December and Claim Your Free Gift
o Use active keywords – Use active words such as Call Now, SignUp Now, Register Today, Click to Download, Try It Free, into a button design or a text link.
o Size – Enlarge your line of call to action text or button design, make it easy to be noticed.
Topic 3: Top Ten Important Spam Filter Rules
1. Keyword content filtering
• avoid spammy phrases such as CLICK HERE!, FREE!, once in a lifetime opportunity , BUY NOW, money back guarantee, porn of any kind , etc…
2. Low ratio of text to image
• HTML email that’s nothing but one big image, with little or no text
3. Font
• font size is huge, font colour is the same as the background (invisible text) or invisible embedded code inside your HTML email message
4. USING ALL CAPS
• either in subject line or body content
5. HTML format
• designing HTML email in Microsoft Word, and exporting the code to HTML
6. Language filters
• languages other than English or character set
7. Attachment blocking or external links
• try not to attach files into email and ensure that there are no excessive external links
8. Email size
• incoming emails can be blocked if they exceed a certain size
9. Black lists
• the spam filters utilize black lists which are a collection of IP addresses and domain names that have sent out spam in the past
10. Sending to multiple recipients
• within the same server or same company
Conclusion
Thank you for reading this article. This article provides useful guides on email marketing, and helps e-marketers to avoid several pitfalls in email marketing. We hope you may regard this article as a source of guidance and that we can help you in your email marketing effort. If you think the outlined tips can help you and others, please take a few seconds to help us distribute or forward this article to as many people as possible. We appreciate your time taken to read this article and we always appreciate reading your thoughtful and well considered comments, please drop an email to us at info[at]waveevo.com if you have something to tell us.
About Us: Wave Evolution
Wave Evolution (M) Sdn Bhd (Co. No: 766237-U) is incorporated in Malaysia and is emphasizing on email marketing solution as our core business. We are one-stop email marketing agency providing following services:
• Email marketing software solution
• Email broadcasting solution
• Email newsletter design services
• Email marketing consultancy
Each of our client receives the highest standard of service and support. Because we deliver our promise to focus on client service excellence, efficiency and integrity, and today we are proud to have worked with the leading companies from various industries such as:
If you have any inquiry on our email marketing services, please contact us at +603 7877 8895 / 6695 or e-mail to info[at]waveevo.com
Prepared by:
Team @ Wave Evolution (M) Sdn Bhd
Unit 3A21, Block A3, Leisure Commerce Square,
No.9, Jalan PJS 8/9. 46150 Petaling Jaya,
Selangor. Malaysia.
Tel: +603 7877 8895 / 6695
Fax: +603 7877 4495
E-mail: info[at]waveevo.com
Web: http://www.WaveEvo.com
Office hour: 9 am – 6 pm (Monday – Friday)
About the Author
Travis Saw is one of the pioneers providing e-mail marketing consultation in Malaysia. He has helped literally hundreds of Malaysian companies ranging from SMI / SME to public listed companies build a better understanding of e-mail marketing.
He holds a Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Electrical from University of Malaya in 2006. He became en entrepreneur soon after getting his degree. He is the founder of Wave Evolution (M) Sdn Bhd, focusing on helping companies to market their products / services through e-mail marketing, direct mail marketing and search engine marketing. Wave Evolution also manages an online business directory – WebDirectory.com.my connecting businesses from all over Malaysia.