Posted by Ray White on December 18, 2009 Comments (1)

Admit it. You delete more email messages than you actually read.

In today’s fast-paced, high-tech digital world the communication tool of choice is email. Your inbox is constantly flooded with new messages from your family, friends, colleagues, affiliate programs, and oh my goodness the spam! It would take hours to read every single message that you receive. Busy internet marketers just don’t have that kind of time. So you “filter” your email. You scan the inbox and delete messages from people you don’t recognize or whatever doesn’t look important or interesting. It’s okay. Everybody does it. That’s time management.

So how do you make sure that the email messages that you send out don’t get deleted? People must know, at a glance, that your message is one that they want to read from someone they know.

Use your real name or business name in the From column

People must know instantly who the message is from. “Admin” and “webmaster” sound important, but they also seem like someone trying to hide behind a fancy title. You spent a lot of time and effort developing your brand and reputation. Make it work for your email and put your name or business name in the From column of the inbox. You can set that yourself in your email client or your domain cpanel or the script running your membership site.

Keep your email subject short and to the point

People scan the subject lines of their email inbox. Make your subject line “scanable.” Limit yourself to a line of 40 characters. That way, the whole thing will show in the subject column. If the subject line is too long for the column, people will wonder how long the actual message is. Give a brief idea of what the message is about. If you can, make it a call to action. But before you send it, look at it again and consider if YOU would open a message with a subject line like that.

Mail to your list on a regular basis

Your list won’t remember you if they only hear from you once in a blue moon. Mailing too often can annoy people, but not mailing enough is just as bad. Just because your subscribers opted-in to your list doesn’t mean that they won’t report you for spam after not hearing from you for three months. They forgot that they signed up for your list. Don’t give them the chance to forget you.

Treat your subscribers with respect, and they will open your email.