Making Email Marketing Important

A recent post on the website Succeed @ Email Marketing discussed the fact that email marketing should be important. Except important is not used in the literal definition of the word, it's used as the acronym I.M.P.O.R.T.A.N.T., meaning Insightful Marketing that's Personalized, Optimized, Relevant, Targeted and Never Tired. What exactly is meant by this, how can you achieve it for your own email campaigns and why should it matter to you?

Let's begin by looking at the fact that 94% of the email sent around the world is spam. With such an overwhelming majority of the email each of us receives being utterly worthless, it makes sense that we all are a little bit more wary of every message in our inbox, regardless of potential positive intent.

Even messages we signed up to receive end up disregarded because with so much spam floating around, email users trust next to nobody. We are much more likely to hit delete, ignore or SPAM then to open a message and see what's inside.

That's where being IMPORTANT comes into play, because if your email campaigns follow this basic blueprint, your messages will be delivered and read, and will end up converting your prospects into customers and your existing customers into repeat clients.

Think of IMPORTANT email messages as the exact opposite of spam messages. Spam is certainly not personalized to you, even if they ripped off your name as well as your address and included it in the subject line. It's not relevant to what you need or care about, it's not targeted to who you are and it's repeated ad nauseum with the same incessant messages.

So what's the difference with an IMPORTANT email message?

Insightful Marketing: Your email campaigns should be insightful marketing efforts that you take time to put together. They should incorporate not just tried and true marketing strategies, but also basic insight into your market, your list members and your own brand. It's about using your experience and judgment to craft a consistent image and then to match that image with the needs and desires of your selected market.

Personalized: An effective email marketing message is personalized, on both ends. This means that you should inject some personality into your messages, which can be done by writing casual, friendly messages, including full names and pictures of who you are and who is doing the writing and so forth.

On the other end, it can be done by segmenting your email list into different groups with specific needs and interests. Some quick market research will reveal that some people on your list may be interested in discounts and promotions, while others may want breaking news and some people may want everything.

Optimized: The best email marketing campaigns have been thoroughly tested and optimized. By testing different variables such as different styles of subject lines, different email layouts, different calls to action and more you can create a highly optimized email message that contains all of the strongest elements of the various tests. The result is an email campaign that will convert at much higher rates.

Relevant: The messages you send out have to be relevant to the people receiving them. Regardless of how proud you are that your son just got into college, or that your buddy down the hall just got a promotion, is that really relevant material for an email newsletter from your company to its clients? Stay on point, and provide relevant information that people will care about, be interested in and find useful.

Targeted: You'll have an easier time providing relevant email messages if your list has been carefully targeted. There's no sense in purchasing a list full of names that don't know you and wish nothing to do with you. However if you've built a permission based list filled with people that may actually be interested and open to what you have to say, you'll have much more success.

Never Tired: If you haven't purchased the great new system (!!!!) for pleasing your lover and having natural penile extension the first 12,000 times, then you probably won't on time 12,001. Don't keep on doing the same things redundantly, especially when they aren't working. Write about new topics, use a new template or logo, attack a familiar subject from a unique angle and so forth. Just be sure that your campaigns never become tired.

If you take the time to craft IMPORTANT email messages, you'll see that the results speak for themselves.