Topica's Blog

Welcome back from the long Labor Day weekend!

We’re kicking the week off with a new email marketing tip, this time looking at how you set expectations for your subscribers. Establishing your newsletter up front to your subscribers will increase your open rate and your visibility in the ever cluttered inbox. Here we break it down in four simple steps:

1.) Introduce yourself. Your introduction, also known as your sign-up form, should be short and sweet. Don’t ask for too much information up front, leave that for a later time. Just ask for the necessities- name, email address, and possibly one other demographic that’s important for your email marketing segmentation. Make sure your sign-up form is simple and placed prominently on your web page, and has a clear “Sign Up” button.

2.) Establish your newsletter. After signing-up for your newsletter, your new subscriber should immediately receive an auto-responder with exactly what they are going to receive and when. You don’t need to be so specific to tell them you will be sending every newsletter at 2:17pm PST, but at least let them know what day of the month or week they should expect to receive your information (for example, the last Tuesday of every month, every Thursday, and so on). Also, remind your subscribers what they signed up for, what kind of content they will be receiving, and the from name and email address it will be coming from.

3.) Be consistent. You’ve established the content and timing of your newsletter, so now you need to follow through with it! Don’t change your from name or address, content, or tone- these are variables that establish your newsletter as your own and can harm your open rates. You can play around with the layout of your newsletter, but only do so for the right reasons and after careful testing. Split testing (or A/B testing) can help with this to see which newsletter layout receives more clicks. If you do need to break away from your normal sending schedule or from name/address, let your subscribers know in a friendly announcement email.

4.) Follow up. Now that you have a loyal subscriber base, get more information from them to improve your segmentation and the personalization of your emails. Always include an “Update Profile” link in your newsletters (Topica includes this automatically), and you can offer an incentive for your subscribers who take the time to fill out your form, like a 10% off coupon. Finally, ask for feedback either in a form or survey to see how your subscribers view your newsletters. What else would they like to receive from you? How’s your sending schedule? Your subscribers are one of your best audiences, take their advice and implement it!

Happy Emailing,

Lindsay

Filed under: Email Marketing Tips, First Impressions, Using Autoresponders, Using Forms