Successful e-mail marketing means going back to basics

This should be the time for e-mail to come to the fore as a low-cost, slam dunk effective marketing tool - unless your e-mails go to the SPAM box.

Or, says Jordan Ayan, unless you bombard recipients with so many messages they begin blogging or Tweeting about how you're abusing them.

Or, he continues, unless your graphics-heavy content meets the reality that nearly half of all e-mail recipients have their images turned off, turning your pretty pictures into a little red "x" in a tiny box.

Talk to Ayan about effective e-mail marketing and sometime during the conversation the light will come on: E-mail marketing in many ways channels that Marketing 101 course you took in college. Planning, testing, strategy and best practices all matter.

Ayan is founder and CEO of SubscriberMail, LLC, Lisle. He's also a firm believer that "Building a list is the most critical component" of successful e-mail marketing. "The reality is that you can't rent a good e-mail list," he says.

How to build a list? Retailers can simply "Put a bowl in front and give people a form to fill out," Ayan says. Another idea: Encourage visitors to your Web site to sign up there for your e-newsletter.

While you're working on your list, set some goals. "Know what you want to accomplish over a period of time," Ayan says, then "make the e-mail message relevant to customers. Put yourself in the mind of the recipients" and provide information they need.

Most of your e-mail recipients, for example, "don't care about your widget," Ayan says. Instead of extolling the benefits of your new blue widget, "Share tips and tricks, information about the industry. If you do that, you periodically can talk to them about your product."

That assumes, of course, that recipients open your e-mail. The subject line "is a critical piece of your creative strategy," Ayan says. He'd generally prefer to test approaches, but "How to Boil an Egg" typically is better than "Here's this month's Kitchen News."

In fact, your subject line can wipe out your otherwise best efforts. If you don't watch the words and phrases - "No exclamation points! No 'As seen on Oprah.' Nothing (such as ALL CAPS) that looks like you're shouting," says Ayan - the SPAM filter is virtually certain to catch you.

Ayan's book, "The Practical Guide to Email Marketing," contains more than 100 subject line words and phrases to avoid. You can buy the book at Amazon.com or download it free at www.subscribermail.com.

Finally, treat your recipients like the gold you hope they'll become. "A lot of retailers abused their lists during the holiday season with constant mailings," Ayan says. As a result, "Their unsubscribes went way up."

•Questions, comments to Jim Kendall, JKendall@ 121MarketingResources.com.

© 2009 121 Marketing Resources, Inc.