This is a guest post by Jodi Kaplan of Fix Your Broken Marketing blog.

At one time, bloggers thought email was dead. It’s old! It’s boring! RSS is new, it’s high-tech. It turns out that’s not true. People who let you into their email boxes trust you more than people who add you to their blog readers. In fact, you can even forget about RSS and focus on email marketing instead.

But how? Here are seven steps to getting email marketing right.

1) Write a subject line that gets noticed

The subject line in an email is like the headline in an ad or a magazine. Write a good one and readers will want to read more. Write a poor one, and they’ll hit the delete key.

Ask a question that the reader can’t easily answer, such as What is the Best Day to Send Emails? Or, make a big promise, like “Network your way to top bloggers”.

They’ll be curious, and more likely to click.

Keep your subject lines fairly short, under 55 characters. Some email software cuts off longer messages. Put the name of your newsletter (if that’s what you’re sending) in square brackets at the beginning – so people recognize it quickly.

2) Paint pictures

No actual paint or artistic talent required. Make emotional appeals (wow, I can get to top bloggers, all I have to do is…). The appeal is that you can hang out/network/learn from superstars, and maybe you’ll be a superstar too.

You might write something like, “Think what it would mean if you could hang out with top bloggers. The exposure you could get, the secrets you could learn. All without spamming or being obnoxious…”

3) Prove your solution works

Include testimonials, from real people with full names, photos, professions, and titles. Let them explain, in their own words, how your product helped them solve their problem. Ask them to be very specific about what you did (wrote copy, optimized their web site for more traffic, etc.) and how well it worked.

4) Easy to read

The debate over long vs. short copy has been going on for nearly a century. The truth is that people will read – if what they’re reading is of interest. If it’s dull, or hard to get through, they’ll abandon it.

They do skim, though. So, keep your paragraphs short. Use bullets or asterisks to emphasize your points. If you use HTML make it easy to read, with light background and dark text. Check it in several browsers and email software packages to make sure it looks right.

5) Stay focused

If it’s a newsletter, concentrate on two or three topics. Don’t try to cram everything in there from the last six weeks.

If you cover widely different topics, you may want to use multiple lists. For example, if you blog about parenting, new parents will want different information than parents of teens. So, create different lists, with different newsletters and products, for each.

If it’s a sales email, stick to sales. Don’t ask for twitter followers or facebook posting of your blog.

6) Ask for the sale

Many people forget this step. If you want someone to do something, come right out and ask them to “click here” or “call now.” Use two or three call to action links, depending on how long your copy is. One after the first paragraph, one in the middle and one at the end. Track the clicks to see which one works best.

7) Use a landing page

Send all that traffic from those clicks to a landing page instead of your home page. A landing page is just a standalone web page designed especially to make a sale, generate a lead, or get a newsletter signup.

It’s the online version of a sales letter. Repeat the beginning of your email, and use the same design, so people know where they’ve landed. The landing page expands on your sales email, with more details about the product.

Use more than one link here too. Some will be ready to buy right away, others will need more information to make a decision.

Share your thoughts

Are you using email marketing? How are you doing it? What have you learned (good and bad)?

Jodi Kaplan is a freelance marketer and copywriter. Not getting the results you want from your marketing? Find out how to fix at Fix Your Broken Marketing blog.

Image Credit: Flickr

Tagged as: Copywriting, Email Marketing, Headlines, Mailing Lists