50 Ways To Get
More From Your
Email Marketing
Program
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

It’s not because it’s legal
that it’s a smart thing to do.
Always ask per mission
before you add someone to
your email list!
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Sell your newsletter program
like you sell your products
or ser vices. Make me feel
like I’m missing out if I
don’t subscribe.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Sweepstakes and competitions
are ver y popular methods to
capture email addresses,
however addresses collect this
way are usually not ver y
responsive.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Promote your email program
prominently on your
website. Put it above the
fold and make it stand out!
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Make it as easy as possible to
sign up to your list. The fewer
fields on your sign-up for m the
better. Use progressive
profiling to get more data once
they’ve signed up.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Manage subscriber
expectations: make it crystal
clear what they are signing
up for. State the benefits,
content and frequency.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Show potential subscribers
an example of what a typical
email campaign or
newsletter looks like so they
can see what they are signing
up for.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Include mini sur veys, polls
and competitions in emails
to collect further
infor mation about your
subscribers.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Make the most of every
touchpoint with customers
and prospects by asking
them to sign up to your
email list.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Ensure your emails are fully
authenticated: add an SPF,
Sender ID & DKIM record
to the DNS settings of the
domain you use for sending
emails.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Make sure your emails are
readable and actionable, even
when images are disabled.
Over 70% of your readers will
not download images by
default.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Reach out to people that
don’t open or click, find out
what they want and deliver
that experience.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Include value added content
in emails with links back to
your site or social media
channels to engage
recipients and drive traffic.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Repurpose your newsletter
content on your blog, your
website, social media and
vice versa.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Always provide a highly visible
unsubscribe link to all your
email messages. If they want
out, make it as easy as possible
to leave or they’ll mark your
emails as spam.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Ask why they are
unsubscribing and use the
learnings to adjust your
email strateg y, content,
frequency…
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Create an editorial calendar
for your email / newsletter
program which includes
launch dates and content for
the next 3-6 months and
share it with your colleagues.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Check your html code before
you hit send to make sure
your email doesn’t get
blocked due to faulty html
code.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

To increase conversion rates,
start with the optimization
of your landing page. Test
headlines, copy, web for m
length, images…
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Provide value in each and
every email campaign you
send. Whether or not they
open your email depends on
the experience they had with
your emails in the past.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Make sure your call-to-action
is clear and stands out even
when images are disabled. If I
don’t know what you want me
to do, I won’t take the action
you want me to take.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

An open is only calculated
when the reader decides to
download the images. Use
open rates only to look for
trends.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Use all the data that you
collect during sign-up to
personalize your emails. If
you’re not going to use it,
don’t ask for it.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Calculate the value of an
opt-in email address to your
company to effectively
communicate your program’s
impact.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

The best day of the week or
the best time of the day to
send emails, is like the
monster of Loch Ness: it
doesn’t really exist but
people keep looking for it.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Your recipients don’t know
that noreply@company.com
doesn’t accept replies. Read
what people reply to your
email campaigns, you’ll be
amazed with the insights they
give you!
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Social media are a great way
to grow your email list. I
managed to double my list-
size, just by publishing my
newsletter to Twitter.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Don’t make changes to your
email template or your email
program before testing the
changes to see if they have a
positive impact on response.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

At unsubscribe, allow
subscribers to choose what
content they get from you at
the frequency of their choice.
If you don’t they will just
unsubscribe from ever ything.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

A pretty design with a lousy
offer won’t get you the
response you hoped for.
Focus on the content or
offer first, then worry about
design.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

What your subscribers say and
what they do are two different
things. Don’t base your content
only on stated preferences, but
make sure to include click-
stream data as well.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Develop a test plan and
make testing an integral part
of your email strateg y. It’s
the only way to increase
response and conversions.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Your CEO doesn’t care
about high open and click-
through rates. Management
only cares about what those
numbers mean to the
business.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

The top 300x400 pixels of
your email is your most
important real estate. Together
with the sender name and
subject it needs to work hard
to get the reader to open and
read.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

The first email you send to a
new subscriber typically has
the highest open and click-
through rate, so make the
most of that email and send
it immediately after sign-up.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Introduce new subscribers
to your brand and email
program slowly by sending
them a series of “welcome
emails” before you add them
to your regular program.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

If you send me 3 emails that
I don’t find interesting, do
you really think I’ll open the
4th email you send me?
Don’t send everything to
everybody: segment!
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Set up an email marketing
dashboard so that you have a
good over view of campaign
statistics over time. It helps
to spot what works and what
doesn’t.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

People don’t read emails, they
scan them. Make sure that they
know what you have to offer
and what they need to do in
under 5 seconds, even when
images are disabled.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Drive new fans and
followers to your sign-up
page and convince them to
opt in to your email program
so you can talk to them in a
personalized way.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Check your open and click-
through rates per ISP to
spot possible inbox delivery
problems.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Build subscriber personas for
your email program. Give your
ideal subscriber a face and an
identity. This will help you
write copy that resonates
better with your readers.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Keep your copy as short as
possible. Use short sentences,
short paragraphs, subtitles,
bulleted lists, bolded words
and links to break it into
digestable pieces.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

To avoid spam filters and to
make emails more readable
on mobile devices: always
send out emails in MIME
for mat (text + html
version).
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

In most cases, a hard bounce
means: this email address does
not exist.
If you continue to send emails
to these addresses you risk
getting caught in spam filters.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Sign up to the feedback
loops of the major web
email clients so that you can
remove everyone that marks
your email as spam from
your list.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Test one thing at a time. Don’t
compromise your test by
introducing multiple variables.
Make sure a higher open rate,
results in a higher click-
through or conversion rate.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Don’t forget to mention
your contact details in your
email campaigns or
newsletters: phone number,
email address, website url,
physical address.
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Read my blog and subscribe to
my email list to stay up to date
on what works and what
doesn’t:
www.b2bemailmarketing.com
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com

Become a member of the
Email Marketer’s Club, the
largest and most active email
marketing for um and
community:
www.emailmarketersclub.com
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com51

These tips were
brought to you by:
Tamara Gielen
independent email marketing
consultant, trainer & coach
www.tamara gielen.com
© copyright 2011 tamara gielen bvba – all rights reserved – www.tamaragielen.com