Checklist for your email campaigns

Having an effective checklist for the quality control of your email campaigns can help you to spot and correct mistakes before you send to your email address books.

Most common blunders on email marketing include:
1. misspelt subject line
2. missing images
3. wrong links used or links not working
4. spelling and grammar mistakes
5. sending to the wrong list

Running through a checklist will help you to limit these types of mistakes from your email campaigns so that you can send them in confidence. See the eShoutz suggested points for your checklist:

1. Have I proof-read all the copy? Try reading in Microsoft Word, using the spellchecker to highlight glaring spelling mistakes. You should also read in Notepad, Word won't always catch grammatical mistakes (e.g. to/too/two) so putting your email copy into another environment will help you to see any mistakes that may have been missed previously.

2. Are all links correct and working? Check that each of your links are working and they are each going to the right page/offer.

3. Does each image have an ALT tag? Make sure that each image has an ALT tag decribing the content, this is important because it gives you another way to deliver you information to readers who have disabled images.

4. Have I proof-read all the copy in the text version? Repeat step 1 on your text version. Usually not as much attention is paid to the text version in comparision to the HTML version but this is just as important for your subscribers who do not receive HTML emails.

5. Have I included all of my company information? You should include your company name, street address, telephone number, website address and email address. Having different ways to be contacted encourages your subscribers to interact with you, which in turn makes them feel more confident in your company.

6. Have I previewed the email? Complete a test send so that you can view your email campaign in the preview pane, with images disabled and with different email providers (Outlook, Gmail, Hotmail etc). This enables you to see the email as most of your subscribers will view it. If it doesn't look pretty then go back to your design and make the necessary amendments.

7. Has another person checked over the email? Before you press send, get someone who has not been involved in the creation of your email campaign to check over it. A fresh pair of eyes can spot mistakes that you may have overlooked.

8. Am I sending to the correct address books? This final check helps to ensure that your email campaign is being sent to the intended address books.

For more email marketing advice visit eShoutz.com.

Are your email newsletters suffering from poor performance?

Struggling to get great results from your email marketing? Here are a few reasons why your email marketing campaigns may not be performing as well as you would like:

• Data Collection - Are the email addresses within your address books opted-in? If you are buying or renting lists, ensure that the emails are all genuine and have opted into receiving promotional email newsletters.
• Frequency - Are you sending your email marketing campaigns too frequently or not often enough? You don't want to bombard your recipients with newsletters, but you also don't want them to forget who you are. The eShoutz team thinks that you should send email campaigns to the same lists at least once a month but no more than once a week.
• Email creative - What does your email newsletter look like? Is it attractive? Are the calls to action clear? Does your email campaign work even when the images are disabled?
• Content - Is the content relevant? Are you promotion products or services that you recipients want information about? Also, are your offers competitive enough to appeal?
• Deliverability - Are your email campaigns making it into your recipients' inboxes or going into their junk folder? Ensure that you always spam check your emails before sending them. If they are going into the junk / spam folder they are not going to receive many clicks.

Taking all of the above into consideration and making a few simple changes will improve your email marketing results and return on investment.

For more information on how to improve your email marketing activity visit eShoutz.com.

Christmas e-card Design Service

Did you know that eShoutz offers a Christmas e-card design service? Christmas is a great excuse for contacting your potential and current customers wishing them a Happy Christmas whilst reminding them of your existance. With a little help from the eShoutz design team, you can send affordable, eye-catching festive greetings to your customers and colleagues.

With eShoutz you don't need a large budget to create bespoke Christmas e-cards, and all emails can be tailor made to suit your message and branding. Whether you want to send an e-card that's traditional, luxurious or humorous, the choice is yours with eShoutz.

The eShoutz design team can create branded, personalised e-cards from as little as £45 per hour.

Call the eShoutz team on 0870 161 1226 for a personalised design quote.

Improve your email marketing reputation

You may not be aware of it, but ISPs are constantly checking your reputation as a commercial email sender, and will filter or block your newsletters accordingly. Sender reputation therefore plays an important part in getting your emails delivered. Here are some tips from eShoutz on how to improve your reputation:

1. Maintain quality address books.
It is important for both your reputation and results that you are sending email marketing campaigns to valid email addresses of recipients who are interested in receiving your newsletters.

2. Adopt email authentication.
If an ISP authenticates your email, it can enable receiving domains and reputation service providers to establish your identity and to associate a reputation with it. This prevents your email from being sent to the junk box.

3. Reduce your complaint rates.
Prevent recipients from hitting the 'this is spam' button by sending them emails with relevant content. Also, manage how frequently you send email marketing campaigns.

4. Monitor your sender reputation.
Check on a regular basis that your send address is not on any blacklists. Also, keep an eye on your key performance indicators. These include complains, unsubscribes and delivery rates.

5. It is advised to purchase a unique sending domain. Buy one that has been set up correctly to ensure that it is recognised by receiving domains.

For more email marketing advice and tips visit eShoutz.com

Do you really need a text version?

Do you need to create a text version alongside your HTML email campaign?
The answer in short is yes and there are 2 main reasons why you should include a text version.

1. Text versions can help to reduce spam scores
Because of the abundance of HTML emails sent out, some spam filters penalize for sending HTML emails without an accompanying text version. They also penalize for sending a text version that differs from the text used within the HTML version.

2. Not all recipients will receive your HTML version
Some recipients, such as Blackberry users, are unable to view HTML emails and other recipients have chose not to receive HTML emails. Therefore, if no text version is received, they may be more likely to mark your email as spam.

Remember that text version of you email is the preferred format for around 5% of your subscribers so try to keep the text email looking attractive by avoiding long paragraphs and blocks of copy.

For more email marketing advice and tips visit eShoutz.com

Building trust through your email campaigns

We all need recipients to trust our company and our email messages but factors such as spam have taught people to be wary about commercial messages received by email. So how can you build trust through your email marketing?

eShoutz provide some tips below:
1. Ensure a recognisable sender appears in the from address and/or subject line
2. Brand the preview pane - The first encounter of your email is normally through the preview pane so this area needs to support your brand identity - through use of your logo etc
3. Put full contact details in the footer - Providing your company's name, postal address and contact email address shows that you are being upfront with the recipient
4. Ensure the reply-to address is working - This should be monitored regularly and you should try to respond quickly as human interaction breeds trust
5. Match the design to brand expectations - People trust what they know so your email design should try to reflect your website. These don't need to be identical but should share common elements such as logos, colours etc
6. Encourage recipients to share your email - The easier it is for recipients to share your email to others, the more likely they are to do it
7. Be open about privacy policies - make it easy for recipients to find out how you intend to use their data
8. Give the subscriber some control - If you have the functionality, you should allow the subscriber to manage their personal details and preferences. This will also allow you to create and send more personalised and relevant emails to your email lists, this in turn should increase response rates
9. Avoid spelling and grammar errors
10. Check the email functionality - Are all the email links working and going to the correct place etc

For more advice and tips on email marketing visit the eShoutz website.

A guide to planning a Christmas email marketing campaign

The 10 weeks before Christmas are usually the busiest selling period for online retailers. It is also the time of year that retailers should stand out from other online stores to make the most of the shopping season. Take a look at this guide to planning your Christmas email marketing campaigns and maximise your selling potential.

• Send email campaigns early

Customers will be thinking about Christmas well before your busiest selling period of November - December. By emailing them early you can get them thinking about your products and services whilst they are thinking about what to get family and friends as presents.

• Send campaigns right up until Christmas

Customers will buy online every day of the year, including Christmas Day! Therefore, there's no need to stop sending email campaigns actually over the Christmas period.

• Alter your sales message

Your customers may usually buy your products and services for themselves, until Christmas when they will be buying them as gifts for others. You need to change your newsletters to reflect this. Perhaps feature gift recommendations for family members.

• Check what people bought from you the same time last year

You may want to try including similar products, upgrades, accessories or new additions to the range of products which sold well last Christmas.

• Implement a testing plan

Before your Christmas email campaigns are sent out, make sure that you have tested differentt subject lines, calls to action and product or service ranges to see which ordinarily give you good results. These should then work even better in the run up to Christmas.

• The subject line is crucial in Christmas email campaigns

Your recipients are likely to be inundated with promotions in the few weeks before Christmas. You therefore need to make your email stand out within their inbox so that it doesn't get lost amongst all of the others. By doing this you need to use a subject line that will make your recipient open the email. Try the following in your subject lines:

- Inserting relevant product names that may be of interest to your recipients.
- Creating a sense of urgency. Make your recipients feel that they must buy now before stock runs out or to make sure they receive their goods before Christmas.
- Including a unique selling point. Can you offer free delivery? Guaranteed stock?

• Drive further sales

Don't just stop emailing recipients when they have bought from your website. Keep sending them relevant newsletters to try and encourage further sales.

• Retain new customers

You may create a number of new customers over the Christmas period. Make sure you don't lose these...try offering them incentives to buy from you in the future. Perhaps offer a voucher for use in the new year to encourage them to buy from you again.

For more tips on email marketing visit the eShoutz website.