Email has been around a while, so you’d think marketing people would understand best practices by now. But recent experience proves otherwise.

A company started sending me emails I did not subscribe to. When I tried to unsubscribe, the form said I would be removed from “list 1.” The next day, I continued to receive emails from the company and when I again tried to unsubscribe, the form said I would be removed from “list 2.” This went on for some time. When it ended, I began getting emails from a dozen other sources.

I purchased a product from a consultant and opted in to the newsletter. This consultant began sending me a relentless stream of emails, often multiple times a day, which is not what I signed up for. Fortunately, I had used a utility Yahoo address rather than one of my primary addresses, so I just abandoned the address.

Around Christmas, I purchased a book of hockey game tickets for a family member from a well-known ticket vendor. You know who I mean. They began sending me emails and when I tried to opt out, discovered that they called these “administrative” emails and that I could not not opt out. That’s right. They refused to allow me to opt out. I had to block the address to make the emails stop.

These are just three examples of bad email marketing. They display deep ignorance about how email works, what consumers want, and the best practices that can make it successful.

I know because I’ve been acting as the marketing director for a political grassroots nonprofit for a few years and have used email best practices to grow the organization. Currently, list growth is as high as 500 new opt-in subscribers a day with low opt-outs (from 0.1% to 0.2%) and nearly non-existent spam reports. And I’ve not spent one penny buying lists.

Email marketing is the lifeblood of this organization, driving traffic to the website, filling events and fundraisers, and soliciting donations and volunteers.

I try to adhere to best practices at all times because they work. What are these best practices?

Subscription form top left. This is the hot spot on any website. The form appears in the same place on every one of the more than 7,000 pages on the site. It’s not just a link. I provide a text box to type in an email address with a “Go” button to subscribe.

Newsletter description. The form includes a short description of the newsletter promising what the subscriber will get. This includes a free 38-page “grassroots action guide” as an incentive.

Privacy policy. This is the equivalent of a guarantee. I keep it simple: Your email address is kept confidential. We do not sell, share, trade, or in any way reveal your private information to anyone for any reason.

Full registration form. Yes, I could get by without this, but I use it to get people to confirm their email address, confirm the newsletter they want, choose text or html, and provide complete name and address (which is optional). Because the organization is a nonprofit appealing to a motivated supporter base, we can get away with asking for all this information without affecting our opt-in rate.

Expectations. At the top of the registration form I clearly state the newsletter frequency and explain that the subscriber will receive other occasional emails of interest. Why surprise people and increase opt outs?

Welcome email. Immediately upon subscribing, the subscriber receives a welcome / thank you email that again sets expectations on frequency and briefly describes the newsletter content. It also repeats the privacy policy and explains how to unsubscribe.

Relevant content. I deliver what I’ve promised by including interesting, up-to-date content in every newsletter. I keep promotional material to a minimum, stick to the publishing schedule, and don’t overload subscribers with too many emails.

Prominent opt-out links. If someone wants to unsubscribe, I let them. There is an opt-out link at the top and bottom of every email I send. When someone unsubscribes, they are instantly removed from the active subscriber list and added to the do not mail list.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand these email marketing best practices. By treating people with respect and honesty, and by communicating with them clearly, you can get more subscribers and keep them loyal.

Email marketing best practices can be boiled down to the golden rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

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E-mail advertising has always been a simple and economical way to advertise. And now that economies all over the world are in the tank, there’s more incentive than ever to use e-mail to sell products and services.

But simple and cheap doesn’t always translate into “successful.” Sometimes I receive an e-mail that makes me say, “Huh?”

This recently happened when I received the e-mail ad pictured to the right.

First, I can’t read the copy. Maybe that makes me unsophisticated, but sorry, I don’t speak or read French.

Second, what exactly does “Air Email” mean? It appears to be the name of the company but, huh? Is this supposed to be like Air Mail? That used to mean mail transported by plane, signifying that it was delivered fast. Today Air Mail is a trademark of the United States Postal Service and refers to international mail.

Third, this is spam. The main part of the message is an image, meaning they are purposely trying to bypass spam filters. And in this case, it worked. They do provide what appears to be an opt-out at the bottom, but I won’t click on it because it may be a way to confirm that my e-mail address is valid and invite more spam.

Fourth, I live in the U.S. The e-mail is in French. So there appears to be no targeting of this message. It’s probably just a compiled list, another red flag that this is spam.

Apart from the spam issue, this all adds up to a confusing e-mail message. I can’t read it. “Air Email” makes no sense. It looks like spam. And it seems to be sent at random rather than to me personally. When people are confused, they don’t respond.

This is an extreme example, but it makes the point: Clarity is vital in any advertisement, including e-mail.

The “from” address should make sense. The from address on this e-mail is “Communication.” Huh?

The subject line should be clear. If your target audience doesn’t understand it instantly, the e-mail gets deleted instantly. Like the rest of the message, the subject line here is French.

The “to” information should be your recipient. This e-mail is addressed to “42290831259.” Great, I’m just a number.

The offer should be stated very early in the text. People won’t spend any time at all searching for it. I’ll give them points for this one. The offer (in French) is right at the top.

The message should nearly always be short. No one wants to read long e-mails. So no matter how clear the copy really is, too much of it will make people wonder what they’re missing if they don’t read it, which they won’t, so they click delete. This one is short, so more points.

The copy should be clear and direct. Just because it’s e-mail doesn’t mean you can get away with sloppy copy. Oh, and it should be in the same language as the recipient! Clear copy here? No clue.

The links should be worded clearly. Example: If you’re offering a free e-book, the link text should include the words “Free E-Book.” In this e-mail, they appear to provide check boxes and have a “click here” link at the bottom, but actually the whole thing is a clickable image. So no points for this sleight of hand.

The e-mail should follow all best practices. This isn’t just to avoid spam complaints. It helps create trust. Given what I’ve already said, this particular e-mail fails the test for trust.

When you’re creating or sending an e-mail, always ask yourself, “Does this make sense to the people I’m sending it to?” Or should I say, “Est-ce logique de les personnes à qui je l’envoyer à?” (I used Google Translate for that.)

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Subject lines are to e-mail as teaser copy is to direct mail.

The subject line is the first thing people see when they receive your e-mail message. If it grabs their attention and creates curiosity, your message gets opened and read. Otherwise, your message gets deleted.

Everyone has their own ideas about what makes for good subject lines, but MarketingSherpa recently crunched the numbers on a year’s worth of newsletter data. The results produced four key strategies.

1. “Show value in the first two words”

You can’t be clever or mysterious. People get way too much e-mail to waste time on anything that doesn’t convey an immediate benefit. Take a look at the subject lines from Sherpa’s top 10 newsletter performers:

Top 12 Email Newsletter Mistakes
Simple Email Link Change Lifts Clicks
CAN-SPAM – Must-Know Updates
Best Time to Send Email: Test Results
6 Actions to Lift Clickthroughs: New Data
Your Copy of Annual Email Study Results Enclosed
HTML vs Text: Which Works Better?
Newsletter Design Exclusive Data
Email Audit PDF: How-to & Checklist
How to Conduct Email Surveys

I’m not sure where they get the idea that it’s specifically the first two words that make a difference, but it’s clear that all of the subject lines convey a benefit quickly and clearly, with relevant words near the beginning.

Contrast these to Sherpa’s bottom performers:

Target Referrals & Abandons
Eastern Europe Factbook
Tailor Lists to Reach Exec Moms
Call for Speakers – Email Summit & Expo ‘09
Your Input, Please: Annual Marketing Questionnaire
How Wholesaler Lifted Orders 13%
Buyer’s Guide to Top Survey Vendors
Turn Customer Queries Into Profit
Test Your Email Practices; Friday Award Deadline
Alert: Analysis of New CAN-SPAM Rules

Some of these subject lines signal interesting content, but they don’t telegraph the same immediate value as the top performing subject lines.

2. “Find the right trigger words”

In addition to quickly conveying actionable information, Sherpa concluded that there are certain “triggers” that can increase the open rate. A trigger can be “a name, the use of numbers, the number of characters in the subject line, the use of an industry phrase, or the appearance of an unusual word.”

One of these, short subject lines, is shown clearly in Sherpa’s top four performers, which were around 30 to 40 characters long. That squares with the rule of thumb that subject lines should be about 35 characters.

However, don’t get too wound up about length. Content is always more important than structure, so long subject lines can work if they’re used at the right time, such as with a white paper or other freebie.

I would suggest the same advice for subject lines as ad headlines: take your time, write dozens, and play with the wording before you decide which way to go.

3. “Watch the hard sell”

Hard sell can work with certain consumer segments, but many people are turned off by overblown language and unbelievable promises. Business buyers can be especially sensitive to hard sell. Here are 10 of Sherpa’s worst performing B2B subject line:

Please Take Quick Tech Survey Today
Call for Speakers: Demand Gen Summit
You’re Invited – Biz Tech Webinar June 17
Early Bird Special for Demand Gen Summit
Nominations to Speak at Email Summit
Podcast: Contests for Lead Gen
Podcast: Get Wicked Good Leads
Game Lifts Sales – Test & Results
How to Weed Out Consumer Leads From B-to-B Campaign
Touched by Angels

These are hardly examples of over-the-top copywriting. But they do have a somewhat self-serving tone and don’t offer obvious personal value. I think most important here is that it’s just not clear what you’re getting with these subject lines.

4. “Hot brands work across sectors”

This one could fall under #2, “Find the right trigger words.” Recognizable brand names, particularly brand names that are interesting or relevant to the recipient, draw the eye and carry loads of meaning. Here are three more effective Sherpa subject lines:

Google AdWords: 8 Tips to Lift ROI
Get Listed on Wikipedia – 3 Ways + Monitoring Tips
Use Facebook to Market Yourself & Your Company

MarketingSherpa’s analyst is quick to point out that these subject lines may have done even better if they had used “Wikipedia” and “Facebook,” two highly recognizable brands, in the first two words. On the other hand, following any rule slavishly can lead to awkward copy, so you have to balance rules of thumb with clarity and common sense.

For more info on e-mail marketing, check out MarketingSherpa’s 2009 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide.

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If you thought CAN-SPAM was the end of e-mail spam rules, you’ve been fooling yourself. The Federal Trade Commission recently issued four new rules to tighten CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003). The rules are meant to fine-tune existing rules and best practices.

1. An e-mail recipient cannot be required to pay a fee, provide information other than his or her e-mail address and opt-out preferences, or take any steps other than sending a reply e-mail message or visiting a single Internet Web page to opt out of receiving future e-mail from a sender.

2. The definition of “sender” has been modified to make it easier to determine which of multiple parties advertising in a single e-mail message is responsible for complying with the Act’s opt-out requirements.

3. A “sender” of commercial e-mail can include an accurately-registered post office box or private mailbox established under United States Postal Service regulations to satisfy the Act’s requirement that a commercial e-mail display a “valid physical postal address.”

4. A definition of the term “person” has been added to clarify that CAN-SPAM’s obligations are not limited to natural persons.

So why the new rules? Well, apart from number three, they’re all in response to e-mailers finding loopholes in the existing rules or otherwise abusing best practices.

Why should any of us care? Because unlike unwanted direct mail or TV commercials or other ads that people occasionally find annoying, e-mail spam is something that drives people insane with anger. And legislators will continue to respond to this anger with more and more rules. ISPs have been reacting too, with tighter spam filters – so tight that legitimate e-mail is often filtered out.

And the definition of what is or is not spam is entirely up to the ISP. They can block your mailings simply because one recipient is having a bad day and decides to take it out on you by reporting you as a spammer rather than simply opting out.

E-mail programs and online services have also been beefing up spam filtering tools allowing users to sort e-mail on the receiving end so they don’t have to deal with spam or block all unapproved e-mail altogether. Services such as Spam Arrest take spam avoidance to another level, forcing all senders to go through an approval process before any e-mail is delivered. If you’re not on the approved list, your messages don’t get through.

Where is all this headed? Toward the utter destruction of e-mail as an advertising and communication medium, that’s where. The problem isn’t that legitimate advertisers aren’t complying with the rules. Most are. The problem is that e-mail is so easily accessible, any idiot can blast it out with no thought of the consequences.

So as long as there are idiots, they’ll continue to spam. And as long as there’s spam, legislators, ISPs, and others will continue to listen to the cries of anger and continue to tighten the screws until the problem is solved – one way or another.

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Recently, I attended a webinar on e-mail marketing sponsored by Target Marketing. There were no big surprises. The experts discussed a few tactical principles that generally help improve effectiveness. Here’s a summary with some of my own thoughts thrown in:

1. Keep your copy short. E-mail is not as much a reader medium as a scanner medium. People get a lot of e-mail and want to breeze through it. If you have a big pitch, link to a page where you can expand on your topic.

2. Keep the design simple. Yes, many people have high-speed connections. But as bandwidth has increased so has volume. Simple designs with small, optimized images load quickly. Text-only messages loads even faster and may have the added benefit of avoiding spam filters, since a lot of spam is now image-based.

3. Give people several clicks. There may be some debate on how many, but from what the gurus said in this webinar and from my own experience, I’d say from 3 to 7 links on average. However, the experts didn’t talk much about text e-mails which can work quite well with a couple sentences and one link. Then there are e-mail newsletter formats that could have dozens. So as always, rules of thumb are not really rules.

4. Use personalization when possible. Just like traditional direct response, e-mail can benefit from personalization. The subject line or salutation are ideal for this. However, I’ve also seen test results that show misusing personalization will decrease response, so be careful. One big caveat: Showing you know a lot about someone who doesn’t know you can freak people out. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.

5. Honor privacy. That means give people a clear way to opt out and then honor that opt out. Speaking as a consumer, I’m furious when e-mailers ignore my opt-out requests or bounce me from list to list. I promise that this will lead to harsh regulations. Don’t kill the medium. If people want to opt out, stop e-mailing them. They don’t want to buy from you.

6. Deliver high value. This is always good advice. The easiest products and services to sell are those that are truly valuable. Ideally, copy shouldn’t be blowing smoke but simply allowing the product or service to strut its stuff, if I can mix my metaphors.

7. Think relevance. Targeting is getting much better in e-mail, but because the medium is so cheap, you still have plenty of “blasters” out there. Don’t be like them. Try to match your offer to your prospects as closely as possible.

8. Don’t sound too promotional. Please, please, please don’t write all your e-mail or online copy in the hyped style of the get-rich-quick landing pages. Those work great for a certain audience, but not for everyone. A friendly, natural tone helps you connect with people and avoid sounding like 3 a.m. TV guys selling miracle mops and weight loss potions.

That about covers it. Personally, at this point in the evolution of e-mail, I see the medium as a way to reach out to people and bring them to a Web page. It’s not direct mail. It’s technologically primitive. And for many people it’s an irritant if you abuse it.
E-mail is also good for staying in touch and communicating with people with which you have a relationship, so longer copy can work in these applications.

It’s hard to tell what the future holds, but for now it’s a medium with both promise and problems.

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If you’ve been doing e-mail marketing for more than a week, you know about some of the problems with this exciting new medium.

Lists filled with undeliverable addresses, wildly inconsistent spam filtering rules across e-mail servers, and inconsistent rendering of design by different e-mail readers are some of the most common issues that will plague you.

But there’s one pernicious problem you probably don’t know about. It’s lurking behind every e-mail marketing campaign you launch. And it can cause you enormous grief.

The worst part? You can’t do a darn thing about it.

I’m talking about the system administrators who sit in front of computer screens and make on-the-fly decisions about your e-mail.

The politically correct line is that marketers and Internet tech guys are on the same side, both wanting to block spam and assure the delivery of properly conceived e-mail marketing. The reality is that many system administrators are antagonistic to the commercialization of the Internet. And they’re not at all happy about your using e-mail to sell things.

One such system administrator recently told me, “CAN-SPAM isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. What you have to watch out for are system administrators having a bad week.” In his opinion, ANY e-mail you send that isn’t specifically requested is spam. Period. End of discussion.

That probably strikes you as extreme. But it’s not uncommon. For some, spam has come to mean just about any e-mail that people don’t want, whether the sender follows the rules or not.

Let’s be fair. Spam IS a huge problem. And it’s the system administrators that have the thankless job of dealing with it and trying to protect you from it. They get yelled at if they filter too little and yelled at if they filter too much. The flood of spam is massive and relentless. You can sympathize if they have a “bad week.”

And let’s be even more fair. We all know that a lot of marketers, even otherwise legitimate marketers, are not following the rules. They’re not cleaning lists. They’re not honoring opt-outs. And they’re not considering the long-term consequences of public anger and how that can morph into oppressive legislation.

But the Internet is no longer the commercial-free haven it once was. It’s an exploding new medium for marketers. And there’s no turning back. That’s a fact I’m joyous about because I love the Internet and can see the advantages it provides to direct marketers who are smart enough to embrace it. But it’s a fact that irritates some who see the commercialization of the Internet as the ultimate transgression.

It makes me wonder how much “sabotage” is going on inside e-mail service providers, how many businesses get blacklisted because of one guy’s foul mood, or how filtering rules are “tweaked” to exclude perfectly honest offers because of a romantic vision of the Internet of days gone by.

My advice? I don’t have any. Like I said, there’s nothing you can do about it. But it’s something to think about the next time you launch a big e-mail campaign and experience an odd number of bounces or find yourself blacklisted. Did you do something wrong or is someone having a bad day?

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