Ten Rules For Successful Bulk Email Marketing

1. You cannot steal a ready-made mailing list for email marketing. As tempting as the list may seem, these people did not consent so most will unsubscribe, or mark you as spam. This underhanded move will tarnish your brand image and reputation. Opt-ins are important, you need consent. Also, piggy-backing off someone else’s hard work is not the recommended way to do business.

2. Confirm the initial opt-in via e-mail. You don’t want fake email addresses, or people opting in for your product just to irritate someone else. Send confirmation emails for other important changes like shipping notification and orders.

3. Give your readers a choice. Bulk email marketing works best if people receive exactly what interests them and nothing more. So let them fill in as much information as possible. E.g. how often they would like to receive mails, specific interests, age, gender, industry etc.

4. Segment your mailing list correctly. Relevancy is important. Constantly receiving irrelevant emails are another reason for unsubscribes, unopened mail, and being ticked off as spam.

5. A graphically pleasing layout. With that said, there should be a balance between text and images. Too much text equals boredom for obvious reasons, while too many images can be quite distracting and your reader may lose focus.

6. Have the right offer. Traditional direct email marketing has found that having the right offer contributes 40% of the success of bulk email marketing efforts. You need to provide a reason for the reader to act, e.g. a sweepstake, a discount, a free gift etc.

7. Do not send too many emails. Yes, they subscribed. Yes, they are interested. However, information overload will result in more unread messages, unsubscribes, and overall lack of interest.

8. Respond timeously. People want feedback in ample time. Late responses/no responses indicate unprofessional business dealing and can assist in tarnishing a good reputation.

9. Have a privacy policy and ensure that your readers know it.

10. Make opt-outs a simple process. If they want out, let them out. There’s no point in torturing them with a tedious process. It will just lead to irritation which does not do well for your brand image.

Sign up with an email marketing company that offers all the email marketing services you need. Global email marketing solution, GraphicMail, have created a library of free email templates from which clients may select any number of templates. Their templates are designed to cater to a range of industries, occasions and events.

By: Lewis Mossman

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Lewis Mossman is a freelance author who has vast knowledge in bulk email marketing and direct email marketing. For more information on email marketing he suggests you to visit: www.graphicmail.com/