EMail Marketing  Campaigns have lost a lot of the luster recently, especially when factoring the never-ending deluge of Spam Email we all receive. But, it can be a powerful tool that compliments Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing and Blogging.

Most importantly, Email delivers a great return on your marketing investment and its Measurable and “Testable.” Best Practices for Successful EMail Marketing:

1) You can use list brokers or build your own list - it takes time to work up to this but use Aweber’s Technology to “ping” and email your contacts when have something of value to convey. But, if you can’t develop your own list the look online for a vendor.

2) Pick your Subject Line carefully - this single factor impacts your “open” (click & read) rate by 20-40% - be provocative if you can. “Save 30% on Rates Today”

3) Use 2-3 sentence paragraphs, with no more text than this and some “white space” in between your paragraphs,use power words that resonate with your reader at a gut (visceral) level.

4) Pick up on themes commonly held or believed to add credibility to your email message: “today’s New York Times talked about……..”

5) Use Paragraph Headers to drive the reader into your copy that have impact.

6) Test your messaging - change your “offer” or content in the message and send out a test campaign using 10% of your total database of names and see which offer outperforms the other.

7) Use PS to reinforce a core part of your EMail Marketing Campaign message ” we told you to save XXX% by clicking through this email for this discount.

8) We highly recommend Vertical Response and use have worked with them and had the pleasure of engaging and interacting with them many times over the years.

9) Frequency of messaging is important; meaning, you may have to send out several messages to get your message heard through the clutter/babble that we all deal with. Don’t despair if your first couple of mailers don’t generate much - retest and resend! Tenacity of purpose wins…..

10) Be actionable to your reader - give them a way to take some action (registration, sign up for discount, etc.); if driving them to sign up page keep it simple, with minimal fields (Name, EMail no more).

11) Cross promote email marketing with Social Media - we anticipate seeing more of this as we move into 2010 - Twitter is our Social Media Platform of Choice.

12) Don’t forget to check your Google Analytics to see what type of traffic your email campaign is generating; if you are using service providers they will have their own analytics, but always good to cross check.

So, our recommendations for Best Practices for Successful EMail Marketing - follow us on Twitter or please sign up for our Blog to connect!