In today’s troubled economy, businesses must continue growing to remain solvent. With bulk email and direct email campaigns, economy and creativity come together. Using the global internet, thousands of emails can be in a user’s inbox within seconds, with just the click of a mouse. But with power comes responsibility. When sending out any bulk email campaign, there are rules that must be observed. Your company’s reputation depends on it.
Why So Much Concern?
In January 2004, The CAN-SPAM Federal Law went into effect. This created a single national standard for all commercial email, bulk email, direct mail, including all marketers. Everyone must be in full compliance. Putting these laws into practice improves the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign and message, while keeping your company from being labeled a spammer.
Here are some tips for making your next bulk marketing campaign work for you
- Seek permission to send your emails to prospects, customers, or clients. Use the double opt-in to subscribe. Send your campaigns to interested recipients.
- Publish your privacy policy. Let people know what you intend to do with your email list before their signing up.
- Include an unsubscribe email link that works.
- Honor the requests to unsubscribe immediately.
- Use your real company name and include contact information. Validate your campaigns. Let your subscribers know this is from a trustworthy business.
- Don’t use email overload. Space out your campaigns.
- Have a bounce handling policy. Do not keep sending undeliverable emails.
- Do not include downloading attachments. People will be suspicious and will rightly fear getting a virus.
- Have an option for text only email. Not all HTML email displays the same way in every browser or email client.
- Personalize your direct email campaigns. Everyone likes to be noticed.
- Make your design and content professional and relevant. Check your grammar and spelling. Remember, whether you are sending an email newsletter or bulk email campaign, they are representing your company and expertise.
- Provide useful content. Whether you are sending a promotion, update, or tips, you focus is to target the right people with the right message. Having so little time to hold a reader’s attention, make your content relevant and to the point. Capture their attention.
- Write a compelling subject line without triggering spam filters.
- Keep your lists current. Using email list management helps identify and purge your duplicate, bounced, and undeliverable emails.
- Maintain updated demographics. Remember, data collection is an endless task. After all, people move, marry, change jobs, get older, and move or transfer to other geographical locations. The importance of keeping your data up-to-date cannot be overemphasized.
Email Campaign Software – Tracking your Results
We cannot overemphasis the important of using good email campaign software to track your results in every e-campaign that you send. Creating a campaign and hoping it does well, is not smart. Successful campaigns are built on research and stats. Tracking your email campaigns will let you know the:
- e-mails opened
- e-mails read
- buys made
- emails marked as undeliverable
- emails bounced
- links and ads clicked on
- recipients that opted-in and opted-out.
Successful bulk mail campaigns are a product of research, stats, creativity – and of course, offering a great product or service. Getting them read however – is just the first step. Knowing the Spam Laws, and adhering to and honoring email etiquette, creates trust with your prospects and clients, keeping your company name and reputation far from the spammer label.
