E-Mail Secrets Exposed

If your company does any kind of e-mail marketing, you’re probably familiar with the term “e-mail blast,” an act that basically involves sending out a batch of e-mails to people someone has deemed interested—or at least potentially interested—in what your company does. Sure, you’re trying to get your message out. But if you stop and think about this strategy, it becomes hard not to wonder: Who really wants to get blasted? The answer, says Andrew Eklund, founder and CEO of the Minneapolis-based Internet marketing firm Ciceron, is nobody.

“E-blasts are really a four-letter word in our industry,” he explains, “because you’re assuming that everyone in your database is at the exact same place and time.” This is a problem because everyone is different and the key to effective e-mail marketing is knowing your customer. “Good e-mail marketing is like good Web design,” Eklund continues. “It assumes each of us are different and customizes messages accordingly, since what’s compelling to you may not be compelling at all to me.”

But understanding your audience is just one part of the art of crafting a successful e-mail marketing campaign. There are best practices and anti-spam laws, software for tracking responses, strategies for getting people’s attention, and much more. To help sort out what works and what doesn’t, we asked four e-mail marketing pros for their tips and advice.

Devising a Plan

Mike Baranowski, a Web analyst with Aware Web Solutions, a Web developer in Minneapolis, advises a start-from-the-top approach whether revamping a client’s old e-mail marketing strategy or enhancing a current campaign. After asking what a client’s company does and how they interact with customers, he finds out what message they want to convey and how they want people to respond. “We have clients come in with really great ideas, but they’re so complex they don’t translate well,” he explains. Rather than trying to do everything from creating leads and providing content to generating commerce with one e-mail, Baranowski advises keeping the message simple. “We say, ‘Okay, let’s take a step back because simple will win the day.’ ”