Dominating Direct Marketing

Publisher:	John Reed
Date:	2007-08-25
Word count :	499

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Is Direct Marketing Worth The Hoopla?

Teri morin

2007-11-22

		Title: Is Direct Marketing Worth The Hoopla?

Is Direct Marketing Worth The Hoopla?

You maybe looking at marketing a product or good and trying to decide on what kind of marketing you should proceed with. You have seen direct marketing and maybe wondering if it is worth the all its cracked up to be. Let us take a look at direct marketing to help you decide.

What is direct marketing? Direct marketing simply put is marketing that delivers a promotional message directly to potential customers on an individual basis. There are many benefits to direct marketing a few of which are; providing targeted information to a demographically targeted audience, easily measure the amount of marketing you pay for and who it reaches.

By targeting a specific group of people your marketing dollar is spent wisely. You are not wasting money on marketing to people who have no desire in your products. A well thought out and planned direct mail marketing campaign can bring in many buyers. You can test market without spending a lot of money and you have more control over how much you market spending as little or as much as you need to. Direct marketing allows you to develop a distinct personality for your business. It can be used to help enhance the image of your business, to give your clients and customers much needed information about your company, and to help persuade them to order from you.

There are also disadvantages to direct marketing and they are not always something you think about when considering marketing your product or goods. One of the main down falls to direct market mailings is that people often consider it to be junk mail; junk mail is often thrown away never read meaning that your money was wasted in your efforts to gain business. Your direct mail is competing with dozens of other companies who are using the same kinds of marketing as you are. There can be a relatively high cost per contact in direct marketing if you are unsure or do not have marketing plan.

Every business can increase their profit and make more sales by marketing. The key is to find a way to market as relatively inexpensively as possible. Your success will depend on the method of marketing you use and in the way you present your information about your company. With direct marketing you will want to define your target group. This is the group of people you want to target mail to. This can help you to directly target groups that will be interested in items you want to sell.

Direct marketing can either be good for your company or bad for your company. It will greatly depend on you. Your marketing strategy and what kind of research you put into it before you go about your marketing.

Submitted by www.ihomebizz.com

Powerful PR Lessons from Successful Direct Marketing Techniques

Gail Martin

2007-10-22

		Title: Powerful PR Lessons from Successful Direct Marketing Techniques

Direct marketing—including catalogs and Internet sales—is a $1.85 trillion industry in the U.S. that accounts for 7 percent of total U.S. sales, according to the Direct Marketing Association. Direct marketers make their money by understanding exactly what customers want and giving it to them. Here are five key public relations lessons to learn from direct marketing:

Target your message

Successful direct marketing is targeted. It gets the right offer in the right format to the right people who have an interest in or a need for a manufacturer’s product. Direct marketers spend millions of dollars creating and refining mailing lists and subscriber profiles to find just the right consumers to buy their product.

Direct marketers don’t try to be everything to everybody. They use their budget wisely to reach only the people who are their best prospects and reach them frequently enough to encourage new sales and spur repeat sales.

How targeted is your message?

Do you write your brochures, advertisements and radio commercials with your typical customer in mind? Is your message telling them how they can solve their problems, achieve their dreams, or meet their needs? Direct marketers know that customer benefits outsell product features. Targeting your message to your most likely buyers will make the best use of your budget and yield the most sales.

Test your message Direct marketers base their ad copy, list purchase, media buys and graphic design on research and industry information. Testing is a basic part of successful direct marketing. Direct marketers will take two versions of an ad—one with slightly different copy from the other—or two different lists, or two different regional versions of the same magazine—and run their campaign tests. All the research in the world can’t substitute for testing. Research gives you a theoretical answer. Testing validates your theories in the real world. Many business owners give up on marketing if their first ads don’t send customers flooding into their stores. Or they abandon advertising in a magazine if one ad doesn’t make the phone ring. Direct marketers know that it is often the message—not the medium—that needs to be adjusted to speak more persuasively to the customer. Don’t be too hasty to give up on a whole type of advertising because one effort did not bring a crowd. Change your ad, re-write your mailing piece, adjust your list and try again. When the right message reaches a receptive potential customer, sales happen.

Change your definition of success

Direct marketers are patient. They understand that testing is essential to capture sales. But they also have a realistic idea of success. Depending on the size of the campaign, the type of product and the break-even cost, some direct marketers consider a response of 1 – 5 percent to be very successful. They know that large percentages aren’t realistic.

A campaign’s success also depends on its purpose. Some offers are made just to generate leads in order to build a better mailing list for the next offer. Those campaigns are focused on screening out non-buyers, not necessarily on selling product. Getting 1,000 names of people who are interested out of a mailing of 10,000 people on a list might be very successful under those conditions.

Make sure you have defined success in a way that is realistic and based on solid criteria.

Tailor your offer

Direct marketers know that the magic is in the way the product is offered. Are you selling closet shelving—or an organization system? Is your product an air cleaner—or a way to reduce indoor air pollution?

Even the way the price is stated makes a difference. If you’re having a sale, is the price half off, fifty-percent reduced or two for one? Direct marketers know that different ways to say the same thing get different responses. Make sure that your offers are tailored to what encourages your customers to take action.

Know your customer

The most important lesson is to understand your customer. Find out what the customer is really purchasing when he buys your product. Direct marketing success happens when in-depth customer knowledge is used to tailor an offer, create a targeted, customer-oriented message that is tweaked and perfected through testing, and that produces profitable results.

Even if your business doesn’t currently use direct marketing, you can apply its wisdom to your public relations process to increase your business success. Gail Z. Martin owns DreamSpinner Communications and helps companies in the U.S. and Canada tell the Real Story of their business through exceptional writing and marketing. Gail has an MBA in marketing and over 20 years of corporate and non-profit experience at senior executive levels. She leads webinars and teleseminars for organizations and professional associations on marketing topics, and she is the author of The Summoner and The Blood King novels in the Chronicles of the Necromancer fantasy adventure series.

Sign up for a FREE email mini course, FREE marketing conference call and a FREE teleseminar on Telling Your Real Story, at http://www.DreamSpinnerCommunications.com. Find out more about Gail’s books at http://www.ChroniclesOfTheNecromancer.com. Contact Gail at gail@dreamspinnercommunications.com to start telling the Real Story of your business.

Direct Marketing On The Internet

Alex Cleanthous

2007-07-09

		Title: Direct Marketing On The Internet

The companies that generate the most profits from online marketing, like any other forms of marketing, are those that use direct marketing principles in everything they do.

Direct marketing, unlike traditional marketing, is all about achieving a return on investment from your advertising spend and tracking the response from each individual campaign.

Direct marketing focuses on producing immediate profits or results. Traditional marketing is about ‘branding’.

The biggest difference between traditional marketing and direct marketing (apart from the immediate, identifiable profits) is that you can achieve all the benefits of traditional advertising with direct marketing, such as branding, but you can’t achieve all of the benefits of direct marketing from traditional marketing, such as immediate profits.

For example, let’s say you advertise in magazines, and you have ads in BRW, Forbes and Times, with each one costing you $8,000 for a full page. Traditional marketing would spend the advertising budget to advertise in each paper for the purpose of ‘branding’ with no real purpose except to let the public know about one of their products or, even worse, to let them know the company exists.

Direct marketing would spend the advertising budget in each paper but they would have a clear reason for advertising, would offer something of value and would provide clear instructions on how the reader can redeem that value, such as a free gift or a coupon. They would use different phone numbers in each of the advertisements so they could track how many sales were made from each ad, and what the ROI was for each ad. With this information, they can identify which ad produced profits and which ad produced a loss, then continue advertising in the profitable medium and stop advertising in the others.

Online marketing is the same. There are those companies which use traditional marketing methods (the vast majority) and there are those that use direct marketing methods (the successful minority).

In the offline world, direct marketing means tracking the results from newspaper ads, magazine ads, pamphlets, radio advertising and TV advertising… so that you know exactly how much profit you make from each advertising medium.

In the Internet world, direct marketing means tracking the results from pay-per-click advertising campaigns, search engine optimisation campaigns, email marketing campaigns, banner advertising campaigns, contextual advertising campaigns, affiliate marketing campaigns and everything you do to drive new sales to your business.

One of the advantages the Internet provides to direct marketers is the speed and ease of tracking all marketing campaigns, identifying profit centres and loss centres and then continually improving ROI from each marketing avenue.

Before the Internet, and even now, tracking response from offline advertising involved setting up multiple phone numbers and waiting (sometimes months) to see the results. On the Internet you can see results in as little as 24 hours and then adjust the marketing spend to suit.

If you want to generate maximum profits from online marketing then you must think like a direct marketer, where every dollar spent must bring back at least two or three times the investment.

Web Profits specialises in search engine optimisation, online marketing & web design, helping businesses generate profits from the Internet. For a free report on 'The Secrets of Online Marketing for Offline Businesses' visit Search Engine Optimization

Direct Mail Marketing Done Correctly, Cannot Fail

Joy Gendusa

2006-07-27

		Title: Direct Mail Marketing Done Correctly, Cannot Fail

So how do you do it?

Direct mail marketing. When it comes to marketing your product or services there are two basic challenges:

1. How do you obtain new customers or clients?

2. How do you get your existing customers to come back for more?

Direct mail/direct response marketing answers both these challenges admirably (it’s not the only way to do it but it is a proven method that always works). You can ALWAYS rely on DIRECT MAIL MARKETING. The postcard—direct marketing’s secret weapon…

One of the simplest and most cost-effective forms of direct mail marketing is the POSTCARD. Because postcards work so well they can be considered one of the key small business marketing strategies.

"I switched from sending out a monthly newsletter to my mailing list, to sending out full color post cards. Not only did it save me money on the cost of printing, but it saved me the hassle of having to prepare the mailings.

Feedback has been very positive from our clients and the leads have been pouring in. Plus my website hits have increased due to promotion or it on our post cards!" Kerry Fuller, Realty Executives

Direct mail marketing strategies…

To get new customers all you need to do is:

1. Get their identities (mailing lists do this).

2. Reach them (direct mail does this).

3. Attract their attention and get your message across (post cards do this perfectly—you don’t have to open them!).

4. Get them to contact you. (Your mailing piece, letter or, preferably, post card, will do that if it’s well designed and written.)

5. The rest is up to your ability to sell.

To get your existing customers to come back for more all you need to do is:

1. Keep accurate records of your customers (anyone who has ever bought anything from you) in a database and keep it current.

2. Send them frequent mailings. Postcards are excellent. You can send out a newsletter. You can send out personalized letters. But keep contacting them. Tell them about new products or services. Get them to respond.

3. Obviously you have to deliver excellent service or a great product. You will get results with these marketing techniques even if you don’t deliver good service or a great product, but it won’t last long and you won’t be able to maintain it. 4. Remember, the size of your customer base and the number of mailings to it determines how much income you make. Fact.

So, do it correctly and you cannot fail.

Joy Gendusa founded PostcardMania in 1998, her only assets a computer and a phone. By 2005 the company did over $12 million in sales, employed over 100 people and made Inc. Magazine’s prestigious Inc 500 List as the one of the 500 fastest growing companies in the nation. She attributes her explosive growth to her ability to choose incredible staff and her innate marketing savvy. As an Expert Author, she is always willing to share her marketing advice through articles, interviews and speaking engagements. Visit her web site at www.PostcardMania.com

5 Ways of Using Direct Marketing

William Dupree

2006-01-29

		Title: 5 Ways of Using Direct Marketing

Direct marketing is the best way to attract and obtain clients.

By William Dupree

Direct marketing is attractive to many marketers because in most cases its effectiveness can be measured directly. For example, if you were to send out one thousand solicitations by mail and you receive seventy responses, then you know that the mailing led to a seven percent response rate.

Any medium that you choose to use to communicate directly to your prospects is being employed in direct marketing. These 5 methods are examples of direct marketing that you can use to obtain prospects and increase sales for your business.

Direct mail

One of the most commonly used mediums in direct marketing is direct mail. Direct mail allows you to design marketing pieces in many different formats. Direct mail can include envelope mailers, catalogues, self-mailers, snap mailers, dimensional mailers, brochures, and postcards. When you write your direct mail piece make sure you know your target market, and how you are going to appeal to their wants and needs. Write your objective and refer to it often. Don’t lose sight of where you want to go with the piece that you are writing. You can purchase a mailing list of businesses and services in your target market from a list company, or you can develop your own list by gathering email addresses on your web site.

Telemarketing

Telemarketing is a direct marketing sales technique that has the advantage of speed in a marketing campaign. When you are a conducting a telephone solicitation you should first introduce yourself then offer an incentive in solving a problem that you know exists (to do this would require you to do some research on the business or what individuals would be looking for in your product). Ask question that you know will lead to a yes answer (keep prospects on phone answering yes to your questions). Describe your product or service and how it solves the client’s needs. Ask if they have any questions. You now can ask for a face to face meeting, or to get permission to send information via mail or e-mail, or make another brief follow-up call. If unavailable, ask what would be a good time to call back.

E-mail

The most common medium today for direct marketers is e-mail because of its low cost, and because customer responses can be generated rapidly. You must understand that the internet is a different medium. The copy that worked for you in postal mail will not on the internet, not as e-mail. In e-mail copywriting, the subject is the headline, you must write succinct headline-3 to 5 words. Your subject determines whether your e-mail gets read or not. Next, make it personal. People on the internet want personal notes. Next, get to the point keep it short and simple. Next, give them an incentive to act by giving them a reason to buy now. Next, include a call to action to tell people what you want them to do. Don’t leave them wondering what to do next. Next, drive people to your web site (don’t try to close the sale in the e-mail). Next, build relationship with your clients. Listen to their want and needs. Treat your clients like you would treat yourself. Next, you must follow through on your promises that you made to your client. Do what you said you were going to do.

Direct response

In direct response marketing the customer responds to the marketing message directly. An example, of this would be infomercials, where prospects view a television presentation of a product offering, and can make a purchase with a credit card over the telephone or internet. You can use communications in magazines, newspapers, radio, e-mail, and direct mail to solicit a response. For example, order forms or coupons in magazines and newspapers to purchase products, or receive discounts on products are techniques that have been used very successfully in increasing sales. These same offers are distributed by e-mail and tell and toll-free numbers, which in today’s marketing world, is more economical and faster.

Personal selling

Making personal sales calls on prospects is another technique of direct marketing. You should first conduct research on the companies, or the target prospects that you are trying to sell your product or service too. You can also buy a list from a reputable list company. If you take this route make sure that you have complete information on your target market. When making a personal sales call you must write a sales presentation before hand. This presentation should be written to fit the needs and desires of the prospect that you are presenting your product too. Your presentation should provide clear examples, or even demonstrations of how your product or service will accomplish this. Your presentation should contain more that just one way your product can be of service to your prospect. You must also be prepared to handle objections and questions that the prospects will have.

William Dupree is the owner of I.M.P.S. (Interactive Marketing & Promotional Solutions Inc.) (www.intmktprosol.com) a sole proprietorship marketing firm located in New York City that specializes in developing interactive marketing strategies for small businesses. Prior to founding I.M.P.S., Mr. Dupree was a senior partner at E.D.L. Marketing for twelve years. Before joining E.D.L. he worked for Diamond Marketing Group where he developed personal sales strategies, product planning, event planning, and created interactive marketing strategies for an assortment of small businesses.

What are the Advantages of Direct Marketing?

Steve Sellwood-

2007-12-27

		Title: What are the Advantages of Direct Marketing?

Direct marketing is a marketing tool which comprises activities such as direct mail, telemarketing, mail order, direct response advertising and email marketing.

Direct marketing provides a unique range of benefits because it enables you to engage directly with your audience - whether they are prospects, leads, end users or existing customers.

Other advantages of direct marketing include:

Flexible Targeting

Direct marketing enables you to talk directly identify, isolate and communicate with well-defined target markets. This means you get a higher conversion and success rate than if you tried communicating to everyone in the mass market. And direct marketing is also far cheaper than mass market communication.

Multiple Uses

Direct marketing doesn't just have to be used to sell - it can be used to test new markets and trial new products or customers, to reward existing customers to build loyalty, collect information for future campaigns, or segment a customer base.

Cost-Effectiveness

The cost per acquisition of direct mail can be significantly less than other marketing methods. Plus once you've acquired a customer, you can also benefit from highly profitable repeat sales, gained once again through direct marketing methods.

Ease of Management

Direct marketing provides greater control and accountability than other marketing methods. It is easy to measure results because you know exactly how many people you've contacted in the first place. Once you've run a direct marketing campaign and know the conversion rates involved, you can work on refining and improving your success rates. Plus it also makes it easier to plan, forecast and budget for future direct marketing campaigns.

Rapid Delivery

Direct marketing is both swift and flexible in achieving results. This is especially true for telemarketing, one of the direct marketing tools, as the results of a conversation can be logged immediately and scripts adjusted straight away to improve results.

Testing Capability

Direct marketing allows you to test, test and test again in order to hit upon the most successful combination of direct marketing tools. Any of these variables such as timing, list, message, mailer and offer can be adjusted, tested again, and measured to find the optimum direct marketing proposition.

Relationship Building

Direct marketing is far more effective at initiating and developing a meaningful dialogue with new customers. From the outset you have a direct relationship with them, which can also be used as part of a push pull strategy to stimulate demand for retailers.

Targeting of Messages

Direct marketing can enable you to target different messages to different recipients. Using technology such as digital printing, it's even possible to display different images, designs and offers in a direct mailer according to who it's being sent to, as well as personalising the mailer to the recipient to increase conversion rates.

Geographic Targeting

Direct marketing can be used for any level of geographic targeting, whether it's the local area surrounding a shop or restaurant, regional targeting by postcode or county, national targeting and even international - when direct marketing can prove a far cheaper way of testing the market than a costly personal sales visit.

An Introduction To Network Marketing!

Shaukat Khan

2007-12-01

		Title: An Introduction To Network Marketing!

Marketing as a whole can be classified into two main categories - 1-Traditional Marketing and 2-Direct Marketing. The Traditional Marketing system is the one which all the businesses have been using since the beginning. Whereas the Direct marketing is a recent phenomenon developed before less than a century ago. Direct Marketing is also known as Multi-level Marketing or Network Marketing. The Direct Marketing or MLM is essentially a marketing system in which the buyer is also the franchisee at the same time. The MLM system does not use the formal systems of Traditional marketing, viz. mass advertising, wholesaler and retailer network, etc.

This system was essentially derived from the prevailing fact that whenever we buy or acquire something, our near and dear one's also feel like doing the same by inquiring about it from us. In other words we send more buyers to the product that we acquired. Ofcourse the referrer did not benefit from extending the sales to it's circle of influence.

So some prudent business persons naturally derived a principle from this practice. And they created a professional system of marketing based on this principle. Thus, one refers the other and the other refers another. This creates multilevels of chains of buyers and distributors known as networkers. They made the system work easily by training some persons and made the system attractive to them by distributing appropriately attractive compensation plans to the active networker. It also became easy due to internet popularity and advanced software techniques.

In this system the cost of the mass advertising and wholesaler/retailer network is completely redundant, which cost in the most of the cases around seventy to eighty percent of the sales price. Thus by saving this amount by avoiding the formal expenses of the traditional marketing, an MLM system is able to allocate thus saved funds for paying appropriate commissions to the buyer who does refer other buyer(s).

In this way every buyer who refers more buyers is able to earn appropriate amount of commissions, The MLM compensation systems are devised in such a way that the buyer has enough incentives to refer more and more buyers to the company. This way every active buyer is able to create own team of dedicated networkers. This opportunity is equally available to each buyer.

The netwroker is also known as associate or Independent Representative. The ultimate target in any marketing system is sales. In the absence of all the formal systems of traditional marketing, a Buyer (who is also a seller) in MLM system has to refer more buyers to the company in order to receive commissions and incentives from it.

Most of the MLM companies organize seminars, training sessions and pay special incentives to enhance the leadership qualities in the networker so that he/she is able to organize his/her own team on a fast track. Sometimes the networker may also be required to pay for high quality trainings and seminars.

This system has many advantages. It is assumed that every human being has some basic qualities of leadership. So even the masses who were unable to acquire formal education, could join such programs and with trainings and guidance available in abundance, can earn handsomely. This is also far more suitable to ladies who are mostly unable to join formal jobs due to family and children's responsibilities. Being able to supplement income by part time work at home is another advantage. Due to all these advantages, this system has become an industry in itself and is the fastest growing at present.

However, due to ease with which it can be started by a netpreneur, many unscrupulous and cunning persons have caused heavy losses to the gullible and unsuspecting newbies. This has brought some bad name to the industry. So caution is required by any newbie to select an MLM program. I have some very horrifying experiences about this aspect. Lastly I have been able to find a program that has all the good aspects of the MLM. Like systematic training and guidance, high earning affiliate programs, auto set-up, etc.

Direct Marketing Support Services, Lettershop Services

David G. Petten

2006-07-17

		Title: Direct Marketing Support Services, Lettershop Services

Most marketing firms do a lot of direct marketing. One might even suggest it’s traditionally the bread and butter of a marketing firm’s income. However, in order to properly manage a direct marketing campaign your firm will need to have adequate direct marketing support services, including lettershop services. These support elements will do the grunt work in your direct marketing campaign.

Direct marketing support services many involve such things as printing, mailings database management, and campaign management. While lettershop services handle issues tied to the distribution of your direct marketing campaign. This includes many mundane tasks such as labeling, presorting, folding, tracking and so on. However, as mundane as these tasks may be they are critical to the completion of a successful direct marketing campaign.

In most direct marketing campaigns, direct marketing support services, and lettershop services are handled by an outside vendor. As with the selection of any outside vendor, we suggest you do your research. But there’s a problem with this. Obviously, competitive marketing firms may be loathe to give you any information about the companies they use for direct marketing support services, and lettershop services. But we have found a way around that one, and it may sound silly but it actually works.

Call your congressman.

Stop laughing. We are serious.

Why, you may ask, we are not trying to get a bill passed? We are just looking for some good vendors for direct marketing support services and lettershop services, how could our congressmen help with that? Well, it is quite simple, political candidate do a lot of direct mailings, and they usually use local companies. Also, you are a small business in your congressman’s district; he will have a reason to help you.

Okay, so now you have found a good company to handing your direct marketing support services and lettershop services. Are there any other pitfalls? Of course there are. As with many other outside vendors, those dealing with direct marketing support services and lettershop services make money on volume. Meaning that quality control, though a priority, may not be their top priority. So you need to be especially carefully that all printed material, databases and instructions are given both verbally and in writing.

In our experience, if you have never worked with the vendor, we suggest you do this in person. Although thanks to digital printing a lot may be done via phone, FTP and email, we still feel that these initial contacts should be done in person. And do not give this job to a new hire or an intern. That is just asking for trouble. This needs to be done by someone who has been at your firm for at least a year. Someone who can think on his or her feet.

Another important thing about vendors who offer direct marketing supports services and lettershop services is that they see direct marketing campaigns every day. They have a sense of what works and what does not. If they question some aspect of your campaign, listen to them. They probably know what they are talking about. And, as you and vendor build trust; you may find them giving you pointers that they only share with valued customers. We might add that the referral from you congressman, might also help grease the early client vendor relations. And you thought that was a crazy suggestion, right?

An Introduction To Network Marketing!

Shaukat Khan

2007-12-01

		Title: An Introduction To Network Marketing!

Email Marketing - Quick Tips

Imran Khan

2007-11-15

		Title: Email Marketing - Quick Tips

Email marketing is a flexible and powerful method of marketing products and services. This electronic form of direct marketing has already started replacing paper based direct mail. According to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), about 4.3bn marketing emails were sent in the UK, compared to 5bn direct mail in the year 2005. For the first time in 2007, email marketing has overtaken direct mail in terms of volume, according to the latest National Email Benchmarking report produced by the Direct Marketing Association's Email Marketing Council. No wonder, email is creative, timely, measurable and cost effective.

What you should consider when planning you email marketing campaign

Personalisation - This is the best way to increase the response of your email marketing efforts. Greet and address recipients individually with their name, this will help you speak directly to your targeted customers/audience. Use first names for your existing customers to make the email message personal and use surnames in formal email messages. Personalising email marketing messages brings one-to-one marketing communications a step closer.

Email Versions - You must design your email message to read and display properly in preview pans, blocked images and the text base readers. As best practise, email shouldn't be more than 600 pixels in width and must be compelling form the first line. Don't rely on images; always include text and an online version of each email. Give users choice to receive text or HTML version. In HTML emails avoid using external CSS, if you have to use CSS style then always use inline styles and don't forget to use short and descriptive ALT attributes for images.

Email Goals - Add a clear call to action point(s) in your email messages. Call to actions should be very clear and your message should tell the user what to do in response to the message in easy steps. Too many links and offers could distract users. Call to actions should be simple as "Click here - special offers for cardholders only". If required, create specific landing pages according the requirements of the email marketing campaign. Using the brand name in the subject line will increase the user comfort, trust and will maximise the open rate.

Clean List - It is very important to keep your email list clean. A clean list will help to built good relationships with ISPs (internet service providers) and will also improve the qualified response of your campaigns. CAN-SPAM dictates a clear and working unsubscribe link therefore clearly describe the un-subscription method in the email and explain the un-subscription process. Check the inbox regularly for bounce back email addresses. Remove un-subscribers and bounced emails periodically for an improved and clean list.

Avoiding Spam - You have to be very careful while sending your marketing messages through emails. Spam filters are getting smarter every day. Your email could be trapped in spam filters if you use keywords like cheap, $, guaranteed etc. Full image base emails also could raise flags for spam filters. Adding text within the HTML body will help to pass the spam filters; more text means more chances to pass the spam filters. Test your email before you broadcast it. You can get accounts with different email service providers such as Hotmail, Yahoo, and Google Mail and send test email messages. You have the technically correct emails if your message lands directly in the inbox. One way to ensure that your subscriber will receive your future emails is by sending them a plain text email and asking them to add your email address in personal white list/safe contact list.

Metrics - Track individual email messages technically; such as open rate, bounce rate, un-subscribers, click through rate and delivery rate. Once you track emails, then you need to track the marketing output metrics to measure the success of email broadcast campaigns such as revenue generation, revenue per email, ROI (return on investment) per email, total orders/registrations and total leads.

Mailing Frequency - It is not easy to find out the right frequency that keeps your subscribers engaged without annoying them with too many emails. One way to find out is by review your broadcast data and to look at trends in you open, unsubscribe and complaint rates, if you see a decrease in open and an increase in unsubscribe and complaint rates then you should review your mailing frequency and improve the email content.

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