December 18, 2006

Email Marketing Stats by Industry from MailChimp

If you've been considering whether to use email marketing in your business - stop considering and just do it. MailChimp has stats out which show the success rate for email marketing campaigns in your industry. You'll never know how you can succeed unless you dive in.

Email is a GREAT way to build a relationships with your customers and get information to them via email. MailChimp's email newsletter advice includes:

* Boring works best. When you write your subject line, don't sell what's inside---tell what's inside. Read our study on writing effective subject lines.

* If you want people to open your emails, you need to get past their spam filters first. Avoid using spammy keywords and phrases, and avoid using ALL CAPS or too many exclamation points. The best way to avoid spam filters is to learn how they work.

* Too many hard bounces is a sign of an old, stale list. People change email addresses every few months. Make sure you keep in touch with your list regularly (at least once a quarter) so they can stay subscribed to your list.

* Soft bounces usually mean the recipient is "temporarily unavailable." Maybe they're on vacation or their mailbox is full. You can keep those emails and re-try them later (MailChimp auto-cleans soft bounces after 5 failed campaigns).

* Hard bounces mean an email address failed. Maybe it no longer exists, or maybe someone typed their email wrong when they subscribed to a list. But hard bounces might also be spam filter rejections. If you see an abnormally high number of bounces after a campaign, you should read your bounce back records for any messages or "clues" from spam filters.

* Abuse complaints happen when recipients click the "This is spam" button in their email programs. That usually means they don't remember you. Make sure your "From:" and "Subject" contain your company name (so they'll instantly recognize you). Here are more tips for preventing spam complaints.

You can get the further advice on the tips above here, from Mail Chimp.

Michael Katz's Blue Penguin Development e-Newsletter on Newsletters is an excellent resource for beginners or experts in how to develop a newsletter.

For those of you who have been using Constant Contact for your email marketing you can already see statistics of your and others email campaigns and can use their user community as well.

Other resources you should check out are MarketingSherpa.com and Clickz.com

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