Email Marketing Basics: Starting Your Campaign

Email marketing is often cited as one of the highest performing marketing-platforms in an internet marketers toolbox. However, getting started with email marketing can be beyond the means of many who are interested, but unschooled. In this post we discuss the various aspects of email marketing that you need to know to get started: from technological foundations, to spam filters, to subject lines.

Back to Basics: Understanding Email

There are a lot of basics to email that we tend to over look. What is MIME? Why do we use external images? Why inline CSS? How do spam filters work?

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Understanding Email Spam Filters

One paragraph really isn’t enough to explain spam filters. There are many types of email spam filters, but the most used include: rule filters, Bayesian filters, black lists, and databases..

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The CAN-SPAM Primer

In 2003 the US passed the CAN-SPAM act, making email spamming illegal. While the legality of spam may not matter to those outside the US, the law provides a nice baseline for making sure that your email is not spam.

Permission lies at the heart of so-called “ethical” email marketing. But why should you care, if it works? There are issues with not pursuing permission in email marketing, and if you’re not careful they could come back to haunt you.

Subject Lines: Recognition, Expectation and Affectation

Your subject line can make the difference between users who act, and users who never read. Recognition, expectation and affectation play large roles in building trust, and can make the difference in writing subject that get opened, or which sit in the trash..

Writing a successful subject line is hard, but there are a few tricks that you can use to give your subject an edge.

Growing your list should be at the forefront of your email marketing efforts. There are a number of ways to do this, from sign ups forms, opt-ins on service pages, and more.

Wandering into the realms of theory, I discuss why the highest performance subject lines tend to be so bland. My hypothesis? Cognitive dissonance. By breaking the expectation of promotional mail they intrigue the user and build trust.