Other Email Information
The information below may or may not be relevant to your particular circumstances but has been included to assist if necessary.
Email Etiquette
There are literally millions of pieces of email sent each day. Unfortunately, many people who send email are not aware of the basic etiquette involved. There are certain basic rules to follow when sending email. In business, it’s very important to know about these rules because it’s likely that you will lose business if your emails are badly written. Here are some of the basics of email etiquette.
- Don’t send mass email to people who didn’t ask to receive it. That’s called spamming and is probably the single-most hated thing on the Internet.
- DON’T USE ALL CAPITAL LETTERS! On the Internet that is considered as shouting. It’s also harder to read all capital letters.
- Keep your messages short. Email is considered to be much less formal than sending a letter. Get to the point as soon as possible.
- Use the Subject line to let people know what the message is about. Try to make it interesting and short.
- Spell check your email. Since your message is a reflection of your image, it is vitally important that you make a good impression. Always spell check your email. Also re-read your emails before you send them because no spell checker is perfect.
- If in doubt, don’t send it. No one wants to waste time looking at messages that do not need to be sent.
- Make your email address easy to remember and to type. It is a good idea to provide a link to your email address to make it easier for your customer to respond.
- Use links in your email. Improve the chances of your recipients’ reply to your emails by providing them with links to your Web site or specific pages on your site.
- Nice emails are always appreciated. Saying thank you is always a nice thing to do when you are using email.
- Don’t attach large files (over 50k) without getting permission from your recipient first.
- Include the whole link. When sending a link to a web address make sure to include “http://” as some email programs require it to link successfully.
- Don’t overuse acronyms such as BTW (By The Way). Not everyone is experienced with the jargon and if they do not understand your email they will simply delete it.
- If you are using a basic emailing program and need to send the same message to a number of people use “Bcc” facility. See the section below for more information.
Signature File
A signature file is the text that appears at the end of an email message. (i.e., your online signature). This file should contain:
Company name.
Address and contact details (i.e., URL {web site address}, email, phone number, fax number, pager).
A brief advertising message or slogan. Other marketers refer to this as a “Hook”.
Signature files should:
Be concise. No more than 5 or 6 lines.
Employ the AIDA principle. The file needs to attract the reader’s Attention, create an Interest in your product or service and a Desire to act and tell the reader what Action to take.
Highlight customer centred benefits.
Comply with the spam act.
Use of CC and BCC
The following information is only relevant if you intend to use your own email client like outlook or Gmail etc. to send emails to your customers. Email software and email service providers do not need the CC or BCC facility.
The term CC means carbon copy or courtesy copy. The term BCC means blind carbon copy or blind courtesy copy. These two features of an email program can come in quite handy. These features allow you to send copies of an email to additional recipients. Once you have composed a message and added the email address of the recipient in the “To” field you can send additional copies of the same message to email addresses inserted in the “Cc” and “Bcc” fields. Then when you send the email it will go to all the recipients listed in the “To”, “Cc”, and “Bcc” fields.
There is a very important difference between the “Cc” and “Bcc” fields and it is something you should remember if you truly want to be successful with email marketing.
When you use the “Cc” field in conjunction with the “To” field, the recipient of the “To” field is also notified of the email address that received the same email as them. When you use the “Bcc” the recipient of the “To” field does not get any information about any other person/recipient that has also received the same email.
The “Bcc” feature is an extremely important feature when sending sales / marketing emails to a targeted group of people.
When sending a sales email to a group of people you could enter your own email address in the “To” field and then insert the email addresses of all those you want to target in the “Bcc” field. By using “Bcc” in this manner you preserve the privacy of your recipients and make your email more readable and professional. To the recipients this type of procedure will show that you are very professional in your email approach. Imagine receiving an email addressed to you that also shows the email addresses of a whole bunch of other people. Would you not wonder how many people now have your email address? This is a real concern especially when you take into account the problem of “spamming” and if you have a privacy policy. The “Bcc” field is also safe from prying eyes as it is extremely difficult to uncover who was in the “Bcc”.
Selecting Email Marketing Software / Service
Email marketing software can also include a web based service, of which there are several and a lot of the same evaluation questions can be applied in selecting the one best suited to your needs and budget.
As your email marketing begins to build you may need to use specific email marketing software to manage your client list.
There are a number of issues you should consider in selecting the right software for you. For example:
Will the software work with my existing set-up? That is, does it support my operating system, my data source, and my Internet Service Providers SMTP mailer.
Will time be spent to reformat and transfer information from your data source or does it read directly from your data source?
Will the software support the volume of email I expect to send?
Will the software allow me to customise my email messages with client specific information such as name and so on. Is there a limit to the number of (or how many) fields I can use to merge client information into each email?
Does the software create HTML content type with ease, or am I limited to plain-text messages? Does the software create both in the one email?
Does the email marketing software maker offer support? Has the company got a good reputation and how long have they been in business? Does the company offer any guarantee?
Do I get good value? Is the price reasonable for the features I get?
Will this software make me more efficient in my email marketing?
These are some of the issues you will have to consider and depending on your particular needs there are probably other issues.