Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Three Tips on Getting Your Emails Read

Promoting your company or event through cyberspace may seem like an affordable and time efficient way to get your information out to a large group of people. No matter how well-crafted your promotional prose is, you could be wasting your time if your information is not getting read. I was offered a few pointers from a couple of trusted advisers – a.k.a. people smarter than me!

One expert source on the issue previously worked at a well-known online travel service. No need to name names. Let’s just say his previous employer had a pint-sized mascot with a flair for gardening. He referred to the criteria the company used when sending emails:

• Relevancy

• Compelling

• Timeliness

Bonus Tip!

I also received some bonus notes, if you will, from someone who has taken a couple of classes from a popular email marketing company. She suggested including the first few sentences of the email and then linking the remainder of the story to your website. That way you can review from your email management system not just who opened the email, but who was interested enough in the topic to continue reading. You might also consider giving something away – either for signing up for something, or for forwarding it on to a friend.