Five things you can do to improve your email before 2012

Dec 21 2011 by admin

2012 is just around the corner and it’s time to fill those email marketing resolutions you created for yourself a year ago. With the few days we have left, here are five quick things that can be done to bring results.

1. Insert the “view online version” link – With mobile readership on the rise, take advantage of easily inserting a link to the web version of your email into your template. Informz provides an easy way to do this while creating the email, just simply choose this option from the hyperlink tool.

2. Send at the right time – Remove the guess work and activate send-time optimization when sending an email. This will schedule your email to be sent over a 24-hour period based on the subscribers past behavior. We learned in our 2011 Email Benchmark Report that there is no magic day or time that will work for everyone.

3. Discover your mobile readers – There is no need to survey your subscribers when you can quickly view what they are reading your emails on directly from your mailing activity report. Once you see what types of mobile devices are mostly used, you can better design for these subscribers. View our tips on designing for mobile.

4. Get social – Social networking sites were a hit this year across the board. Take advantage of easily dropping in the logos from your sites into your newsletter, providing readers a way to share on their network or quickly visit your site to continue a conversation on a certain topic. Take it a step further and cross-promote your e-newsletter on your social sites to grow your brand and subscriber list.

5. Write less – Emails are not brochures or a website. Content in an email needs to be shorter than both of these items. When you think you are done, cut out more copy. Readers on a PC should not need to scroll more than once to see the content, and for mobile readers, four times is the max. Same goes for subject lines. Count the characters, including spaces, to make sure it is under 50 characters. Better yet, keep it under 30 characters to make sure mobile readers can see the full meaning!

Try these tips out and you’ll set yourself up for success in the new year!

Jeanette Brown is the Marketing Strategy Manager at Informz.

Filed under: Associations, Benchmark Report, Blog, Email Marketing Tips, Engagement, Mobile, Online Surveys, Social Media, Subject Lines