If you are going to send an email blast – a mass email to your customers – you want to make sure you do it the right way. A poorly done email blast could potentially do more harm than good. So here are some ways to optimize an email blast effectively:
1. Make Sure You Have Good Info
You don’t want to be sent to people who are not interested in the product. You also don’t want to spend money sending emails to bad email addresses that no longer work. So please cull your email list regularly after you get such information.
And of course, you need to give those who want to unsubscribe an easy way of doing so.
2. Observe Analytics for the Sent Emails
What percentage of emails were open? Are there particular topics that drew more interest than others? What time of day were the emails opened? Are there some days that worked better than others?
There is a lot of information there that can potentially help you in optimizing the next email you send. You may be able to see which emails are more effective, and when you should send them.
3. Always be Testing
Come up with ways to test and see what works. For example, will have a differently styled button on your website get more people to sign up for your email list? You also need to gather more information about your customers.
What about offering a discount to those who fill out a survey and answer a few questions? Or a contest?
4. Make Your Email Style Simple and Clean
You want to have emails that load quickly and don’t take forever to come up. And if it is all in graphics, many email programs will not show the graphics by default; customers need to click a button to have graphics show up.
If your email is one big graphic, you could be losing customers that way. Having mostly text is a good way to go, especially given the increased popularity of mobile devices where people will be reading emails.
5. Don’t Get Caught in Spam Filters
Some words, like “free,” may trigger spam filters. So run some test emails and see if they end up in Gmail and other spam filters before sending out a mass email.
6. Send Out a Smaller-Scale Email First
Think of one segmented group to tailor an email to. For example, if you run an arts and crafts company, send an email advertisement out to customers who are interested in crocheting products like yard and crochet hooks.
You can even subdivide this by sending 1/3 of the list on Monday afternoon, 1/3 on Wednesday evening, and 1/3 on Saturday morning. You can also come up with different email styles for some of the groups, to see which works the best.
7. Then Send Out Your Email Blast
Whether you send the blast to everybody on your mailing list or just a small group, use the information you have gathered in order to tailor your email for maximum effect. Then pay attention to the statistics from the email blast, and learn from it for the next time.
When it comes to optimizing your email blasts, it is important not to get discouraged, or to have unrealistic expectations. Just spend some time testing, studying analytics, and working on improving your emails. If you do the right things, you should see an increase in sales or interest in your company.
