Good Email Advertising

I thought it might be good to talk about a few of
my likes and dislikes about email advertising.I
have picked up a few good pointers over the
years.Even though a lot of these may be known or
said before they are worth repeating.
After all the whole idea is get people to read your
emails( not DELETE) in the hope that they will
sign up or buy whatever you are promoting.
One of the first things you are going to want to
do is make sure you don't go across in your email
more than 65 characters a line.There are 2
reasons for this and the first is what is known as
"eye fatigue".What this means is if the person
reading has to go across too far to the right the
reader loses interest.The second reason is some
email clients have what is called line wrapping
which means your message will come out all
garbled if it is over 65 characters.
Next thing is avoid using all capitals.When a
person uses all capitals on the internet it is
considered shouting and nobody likes shouting all
the time.Gilbert Godfrey shouts all the time and at
first it is funny but then you come to expect it and
eventually he's not funny anymore.So be
creative.The odd CAPITALIZED word can add
variety however, and can make a product or
benefit stand out in your email.
The next thing after that is one of my personal pet peeves.
I can't stand emails that are full of bad
grammar.Bad spelling doesn't hurt your
professional image it flat out DESTROYS it.It
makes me think the guy on the other end can't be
bothered to proof read his emails which in my
mind makes him a bit of a retarded chimp.
Another pertinent practice you are going to want to do on a
regular basis is put your link to your site in your
email no less than 3 times.You know the old saying
"a picture is worth a thousand words".Chances
are your website has all the interesting pictures or
videos you'll need to capture your prospect's
interest so make that the goal.Space them out
evenly through your email and make sure they
work by sending yourself one of your emails.Then
CLICK on it to see if it works.I can't tell you how
many people have sent me links that don't
work.For goodness sake don't be long winded.A
little info..then your link..a little more info..then
your link..well you get it.What I want to know is
who are these people who babble on and on...yama
yama... yama.. bla.. bla..little do they know is I went to
the kitchen to get a fork so I can stab MYSELF in
th EYE rather than read anymore.Short and sweet
or KISS(keep it simple stupid) is the KEY.
Sometimes we tempted to use uncommon fonts or
really loud colors in an attempt to dress up your
email.I must confess I used to do this just because
I liked the all the fun tools, colors, and smiley's in
my email arsenal.All it did was make me look
gimmicky and silly along with my
program.Remember you are trying to build trust
and integrity on the net.Using Ariel, Times New
Roman, or Courier as a font style is professional
looking enough.
When it comes to your subject line this is where
you want to grab them.If you follow the rich jerk's
advice he recommends you can even say
something shocking like "YOUR UGLY" or "HEY
STUPID" however, one must be careful here.Trial
and error here and one's own personality to make
you look unique (as compared to all those other
emails) will get people opening your emails.I do
confess that I have clicked on "HEY UGLY" just
out of curiosity.I don't know if I want to be in
business with someone that obnoxious though.I
guess it depends on whether you are building long
term relationships or just looking for the fast
sale.You may want to tell the odd clean joke in
your emails.Especially if you are loading then into
an auto responder.You'll find people will look
forward to your emails just because they can get a
chuckle out of them.