• 

Skip the spam and junk mail folders and end up in the inbox with these HTML email marketing tips

There are many awesome advantages to being able to send HTML emails, as opposed to plain text emails, but there are also drawbacks to using HTML email for your email marketing campaigns.

Before we get into how to get the best results from your HTML email marketing efforts, let's first take a look at the advantages / disadvantages of using HTML email.

HTML Email Marketing Advantages

• You can present a more attractive interface for your users to view and digest
• You can insert images into the email to track the Open Rate of your email marketing campaigns
• You can set up links with hypertext links, as opposed to displaying full URLs in the copy

HTML Email Marketing Disadvantages

• Many email software applications and email services block the use of HTML email. Outlook Express blocks all HTML email. Mozilla Thunderbird blocks all HTML email from email addresses not in the user's address book. AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail all block HTML email, although AOL will allow it to pass if the sending address is in the receiver’s address book.
• Within email software and email services that actually do permit HTML email, formatting problems are not uncommon. The beautiful HTML email marketing message that you spent hours constructing could very well break when the recipient opens the message ‚Äì leaving an utter mess in the email formatting and upsetting the person who received the message.

A simple reminder of something that should be so much in the forefront of the minds of mailing list owners, but unbelievably is not, is the purpose of the mailing itself. Regardless of whether your email marketing message is sent in plain text or HTML format, it is important to remember that the primary reason you set up a mailing system is so that you can guide your readers to take the actions you desire for them to take.

If anything included in your email marketing piece detracts from you being able to guide your reader to certain actions, then your mailing will have failed. The point is to guide your readers to take a positive action that contributes to the bottom line of your business.

The following tips will help guide you to the desired objective of HTML email marketing: converting readers to buyers.

• HTML Email Marketing Tip #1: An image is worth 1000 words ‚Äì well maybe not 1000 words, but an image can help convey to your readers a certain mood or desire to take certain actions. If you choose your images well, it will help contribute to the success of your mailing.
• HTML Email Marketing Tip #2: Don't overdo your colors ‚Äì If you include too many colors, your HTML email will be too busy, and it may even annoy your readers, which is never a good thing.
• HTML Email Marketing Tip #3: Don't fill your page with unnecessary links ‚Äì If you include too many links in your HTML email marketing piece, your readers will be distracted once again from your sales message. Give your readers just what they need, but don't overdo it.
• HTML Email Marketing Tip #4: Format your page width for the lowest common denominator ‚Äì Unbelievably, there are still people utilizing the 640×480 screen width. If they are additionally using email software, the page width may be trimmed to a size much smaller than the screen's 640 width. If your readers have to scroll right to read your HTML email marketing message, they will soon abandon it.
• HTML Email Marketing Tip #5: Give your readers a link to an online version of your mailing – just in case they cannot easily read your email within the mailing software.
• HTML Email Marketing Tip #6: Provide a description tag on all images in your email marketing message, in the event that the image breaks in the email.
• HTML Email Marketing Tip #7: Keep images small – If people have to wait on your images to download, they won't do it.
• HTML Email Marketing Tip #8: Write your email marketing copy in short bite-sized pieces. If people have to read too much sales copy to get the meat of your message, you will lose them before they get there.
• HTML Email Marketing Tip #9: Provide a call to action – If you want your readers to buy, ask them to buy. If you want your readers to support your sponsors, ask them to do so. Action will be slow in coming, unless you specifically ask for the action to be performed.

When exercising some consistent discipline with your HTML email marketing messages, you will find that you will sell more goods and services – and that is the reason you started a mailing list, isn't it?

• 

• 

Reach your customer’s inbox every time with these email marketing tips

If you are doing business online, chances are that you have a mailing list. If you don't have a mailing list, you are leaving great big wads of cash on the table for the next guy to have. Either way, when sending out email marketing you should know how to avoid triggering the SPAM filters that are designed to stop spam email before it reaches the ISPs customers.

ISPs have to present spam filters to process emails destined for their customers. To take an inactive approach will in any event cost the ISP more pain and more lost customers than it would care to deal with. ISP customers expect that their ISP will take steps to prevent their customers from being bombarded with spam email, and the ISPs take that responsibility seriously.

The challenge for the sender of legitimate commercial email marketing is that there is no single standard in spam filters at the ISP level. In fact, there are different standards at each ISP, so it can present varied challenges in getting an email from one place to another.

In some cases, the spam filters are hypersensitive, and even an email to a friend can be blocked based on wording within the email. But the hypersensitive spam filters will generally be found only at the smallest of ISPs. The small ISPs do not have the resources to finely tune their spam filters, so they take the approach of killing most commercial-looking email marketing to ensure nothing risky gets through the filters to their customers.

If you keep reading, this article will present email marketing tips to avoid the dreaded spam filters. But it is important for you to understand that these tips are not provided so that you can spam email recipients – to the contrary. These tips are provided to show you how to get legitimate emails through spam filters, but by all means, you should never send spam email. Make certain always that you have a person's permission before sending them mail. Not only is not spamming good practice, but not spamming could also realistically save you from costly legal entanglements.

9 Email Marketing Tips For Avoiding Spam Filters:

• Email Marketing Tip #1: Make sure that your mailing list is comprised of people who have requested to receive email from you. Double opt-in is always best. Single opt-in is when someone fills out a form to join your mailing list. Double opt-in is when you send an email to a newly registered email address, asking them to verify their intent of receiving email from you.
• Email Marketing Tip #2: When people sign up to receive email from you, tell them what email address your mailings will be coming from, so that they can “whitelist ” your email address.
• Email Marketing Tip #3: Include an Unsubscribe link in every outgoing email.
• Email Marketing Tip #4: Publish your snail mail address in every outgoing email.
• Email Marketing Tip #5: Don't send HTML emails without a built-in text version of the email.
• Email Marketing Tip #6: Don't send attachments in your email. Not only is that bad manners to people who get their Internet services through dial-up ISPs, but attachments can also carry viruses.
• Email Marketing Tip #7: Don't use BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) to send out your email. If an email is sent to more than ten people on BCC, ISPs will automatically filter it as spam. As an alternative to BCC, use a mailing list software or mailing list service such as Aweber or GetResponse to ensure that every email is addressed to only one person at a time. (Hint: Services such as Aweber or GetResponse invest a great deal of money to make sure email messages that they deliver reach their intended recipients.)
• Email Marketing Tip #8: Avoid common trigger words. Trigger words are those that tend to indicate a sales message involved in the mailing. See the list of the Top 20 Trigger Words
• Email Marketing Tip #9: Test your email copy using a free spam filter tool such as the one provided by Lyris

In the end, by utilizing these 9 email marketing tips in the construction and delivery of your email messages, you will find your email reaching more of your intended recipients than you would have otherwise.

•