1. Day of the week - the best response rates for most businesses are on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Why?  It all comes down to the weekly routine most people follow, whether they know it or not.  

Many people use their work email address for email blast subscriptions so they simply won’t see it on Saturday, Sunday or a holiday.   Even those who subscribe with their personal account are less likely to open your email blast on a weekend. 

Monday is clean out the email inbox day.  An email that is buried in the weekend and Monday morning flood is far more likely to be deleted without a look than any other time of the week.  People just don’t have the patience to look at each one closely and they figure that nothing important is sent over the weekend anyway. 

Thursdays are getting too close to the weekend so people are in the late week push to get things done.  In my experience, the only type of message that does best on Thursday is for restaurants and bars advertising Friday happy hours. 

Friday – forget it!  Their brains are already focused on the weekend and they probably already know what they want to do.

2. Time of day  -  yes, it can really make a difference!  The best response rates are to email blasts that are sent from 10:00 am to 11:00 am and 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm.  Once again it all has to do with habits.  People are most likely to open an email if they are there when it pops into their inbox.  They will at least look to see what it is.  Therefore you want to send when they are most likely to notice it when it first arrives.  First thing in the morning people are still trying to map out their days.  Messages sent too early are likely to get lost in the junk mail and deleted.  Lunch time means they either aren’t there at all, or they aren’t paying attention so chances are slim that they will notice your message.  Anytime after 2:00 pm they are either busy getting things wrapped up for the day or their brains have already checked out.

Of course there are always exceptions.  If you are running a huge sale with a short window of opportunity, sending a reminder just before it starts may work.  The same holds true for really important breaking news types of information where time is of the essence.  You may not get as many viewers, but the ones who see it will be highly motivated to open it.

By following these very simple observations, your email marketing effectiveness can be improved at no expense.

The most important skill you need to be successful is the ability to create messages that are engaging to the audience.  The best email plan can’t make up for a confusing or unattractive message.  You need the ability to write content that clearly presents the intended message to the viewer.  If writing isn’t your strong point, consider taking a class or two at the local community college or partner up with someone who loves to write.  Sending an email is the easy part, making it useful takes some skills that not everyone may have.  

Next you need to find an email service that fits the scope of your business.  The email service makes it easy to create and send large quantities of emails quickly and easily.  There are some free ones out there that work pretty well, but if you are serious about growing your business go with a paid service that allows you to scale up the quantities as your business grows.  There are some very good ones out there for $35 to $75 per month.  If you plan to use the same system for multiple clients, make sure you have the ability to completely segregate lists.  You never want to allow the lists of different clients to merge unless both parties agree to it.  Most people who sign up for email newsletters want to be assured that their info will not be shared with anyone.  If you break this rule even once, your whole business could come crashing down.

Open rate is everything to an email marketer.  It is better to have 50% of 100 emails opened than 5% of 1,000.  Why?  Because a higher open rate tells your system that you are a legitimate business providing relevant content.  You are less likely to be labelled a spammer if you keep the open rate up.  In addition, the subscribers are less likely to unsubscribe if they find the information useful.  The best way to keep the open rate high (other than having a 100% opt-in list) is to subdivide your lists into smaller lists.  For example, instead of sending a huge blast to everyone who likes cars, divide your list into people who like Fords, Chevys and so on.  Sometimes you may send to all of them, but other times you may have content that only gets the attention of the Ford people.  This way you don’t risk turning the Chevy people off.  if you already have a large list that is not subdivided, most systems allow you to create an email that gives the subscribers the chance to specify their preferences.  Even though you may lose some subscribers in the process, in the long run you’ll be much better off with a tighter list.

One thing I can’t stress enough is to have an easy way for people to unsubscribe on every message you send.  If you make it easy to leave the list, people are more likely to give it a try.  If they decide to leave, chances are that you weren’t getting any business from them anyway! 

By following these few simple rules, you can avoid many of the pitfalls of starting up an email marketing business.

The key to converting web visits to sales is to make the process as easy as possible. The best way to achieve that is with a good shopping cart.  Many new internet marketers think they can’t afford a nice shopping cart.  The truth is that you can’t afford not to have one!  There are many excellent shopping carts out there that will have you up and running in no time.  

One of the biggest is Google Checkout.  Checkout provides a pretty robust shopping cart set up and your only expense is a percentage of your sales.  For a smaller merchant just getting started that’s only 2.9% + $.30 per transaction.  The only way you pay is if you make sales, so there is no up front risk.  The set up is easy and the process for the customer is intuitive and simple.  That is important because your customers will have little patience for a difficult check-out process.  Don’t make it difficult for them to give you money!  Amazon offers a very similar set up at a very similar rate.  It really comes down to the one you are most comfortable with.

Yahoo also offers a starter package, but theirs has a monthly fee of about $30.00 plus 1.5%.  If you know you will have a good amount of sales right out of the gate, you may save some money going with a flat fee and smaller percentage like Yahoo’s.  The set up and interface are also very good, so the fee structure is the biggest difference in my opinion. 

The only downside to these big providers is that sometimes they aren’t customizable enough for niche businesses.  If your business has very specific and unusual shopping cart needs, you will probably need to go with a company that specializes in customizable shopping carts.  One we have worked with is 1shoppingcart.com.  Their system isn’t quite as easy to set up as some of the big boys but you can get in deep and make it work exactly like you want it to. 

One thing I would strongly discourage is hiring a company to build you a custom cart – at least at first.  The truth is that there are carts up and running right now that will satisfy any business.  It is far easier to find them than to start from scratch.  Also avoid the thousands of “Free” shopping carts you will find while you are searching for yours.  You never know who they are and remember at some point you will probably need to share some financial information with them if you want to get paid.  Stick with well known suppliers with a good track record.  There are plenty of them available.

So go ahead and dive in.  Nothing will help you convert more customers than a good shopping cart!

The most important way to avoid being labelled a spammer is to only send to people who have signed up for your opt-in list.  That means that they asked to receive information from you and are not likely to be surprised or annoyed when they get your messages.  If you plan to use any other list (like a qualified list that you purchased), send an opt-in message first that says something like “You are receiving this message because you expressed an interest in XYZ…  Periodically we send e-mails with special offers and news about XYZ.  If you would like to receive these messages, please select here. You may opt-out at any time. Otherwise you will be unsubscribed from this list.  Have a great day!”

The subject line of your message is also very important.  Ideally it should state clearly what the point of your message is.  Be aware that certain words and phrases can either trigger a spam filter, or turn the potential reader away.  In general avoid one word subject lines like “Hello” or “Help”.  Also avoid words that spammers use like “you’re a winner”, “free”, “gift”, “deals”…  anything that has a too good to be true sound to it.  Obviously you want to steer clear of anything that even remotely relates to X rated materials.  Even though using words like ”urgent” or “open immediately” may sound like a good idea, they are not.  It is a big red flag that usually results in a quick delete.

Most e-mail blast systems will automatically create an unsubscribe button on your messages.  This is VERY important.  Make sure it is easy to find on every message, that it really works and that the user gets an immediate confirmation that they have been unsubscribed.  If there isn’t one, create one yourself.  Nothing upsets people more than receiving messages they don’t want and not having any way to stop them. 

Include your company’s name, a mailing address and a working phone number on every message.  You need to show that you are a legitimate organization and not some shadowy spammer.

One last thing – make sure your “From” email address is valid.  Most systems will allow you to change what the receiver sees in the “From” field.  Either leave it alone, or change it to the name of your company.  Don’t try to get fancy here – simple is good.

By following these simple guidelines, you can avoid many of the problems that could result in being shut down as a spammer.  Remember the goal of any email marketing plan  should be to build a solid list of people who are interested in your product or service.

1. Go Old School – the vast majority of marketing e-mails are HTML based.  Why?  Because it allows you to create nice looking layouts with graphics and links…  In the beginning, an HTML page was built by hand so the coding was pretty straightforward using tables and in-line styles.  With the advent of what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) editors like Dreamweaver, the coding got much more complicated because most people never saw it.  The problem is, many e-mail systems can’t read it either so your message comes through looking like an infant created it.  Many e-mail services have an application that allows you to create your message in the system.  If you are not familiar with HTML, use it!  If you are familiar with HTML, stick to the basics and avoid any CSS.

1a. – It should go without saying that if a system has trouble with newer HTML tags, it will have a really bad time with Flash and other fancy stuff.  Just walk away!  The best case is that you will have a big hole in your message, worst case is that the entire message gets blocked.

2. Don’t use images to convey important information.  Many systems block images so the reader can’t see them.  Images are great for spiffing up the look of your message, but make sure all of the important info is in the text part.  Be sure to use the alt attribute (you know, the one most people blow off) for your images.  That way if the image is blocked at least you can tell the viewer what was supposed to be there.  The whole point of your email blast is to get the message across – not win a design prize!  

3. If you decide to copy and paste text out of your website into your e-mail to save time, that’s perfectly OK.  However, after copying the text from the website, paste it into a text editor like Note Pad or Word Pad first.  This will remove all of the crazy HTML tags and CSS.  Then copy it out of the text editor and into your e-mail.  Trust me on this one!

4. Use full addresses for links.  If you build websites, you know that you can get away with only using the “page.htm” form of the link address within your site.  Why?  Because usually all of the pages are in the same directory.  However  with an e-mail you never really know how the e-mail system is going to handle the files.  Therefore be sure to use the entire long form address in your links.  For example the absolute address for “page.htm” is actually probably something like http://www.yourpage.com/page.htm.  Use it all every time. 

5. Keep it as small as possible.  For both file size and actual dimensions go as small as you can and still get your message across.  For file size, the smaller the better.  For dimensions try to keep the width under 640 px.  Also be sure to keep the really important stuff “above the fold”.  That means have the meat of your message near the top so they don’t have to scroll to get it.

6. Include your company name, street address and phone number on every e-mail.  You also must have an easy to find unsubscribe link that really removes someone from you list if they select it.  Some systems will shut you down if you don’t include this info because it makes you look like a spammer.  If your email blasts are to succeed, they must give the viewer confidence that you are legitimate. 

7. If you are selling tangible goods, set up a shopping cart and provide a link so your guests can make a purchase easily.  Make it as easy as possible for them to give you money!

You will find a lot of lists out there with many more rules to consider.  My experience has been that the ones listed above will help you avoid 95% of the issues you may encounter with your opt-in e-mail plan.