6 Crucial Steps To Help You Land In The Inbox
The First of the six crucial steps to help you land in the inbox is formatting your emails correctly. It is very important that you format the emails so that they are pleasing to the reader’s eyes and experience.
One of the easiest ways to accomplish this in Aweber is to use the plain text message format. With the plain text message format you can use Notepad and format then copy and paste the message into Aweber. If you prefer to use the HTML format in Aweber then the best practice is to use their predesigned templates and just put in your information. Or you could use the drag and drop editor to build your own template. And thirdly, you can use an HTML editor and then bring it into Aweber. But please for the love of all that is holy, DO NOT USE Microsoft Word or something similar as they use their own formatting and it will not render properly in Aweber.
The Second step is to keep you lists tidy. If someone doesn’t open your emails after 90 days or so….maybe it’s time for them to go. Or you could get them off of your Aweber account and put them into a self-hosted email autoresponder like Mail-It from Brett Rutecky and Mike from Maine. This, as Fergal Downes mentions in List Masteree, helped increase his open rates as the WordPress plugin that he was using was able to deliver to Hotmail, etc.
The Third step is to build a relationship with your subscribers. Just to be clear, it is ok to promote and promote often as long as they are glad to hear from you. But you just don’t want to hammer them straight away. You want to entertain them a little, give them some value at the front end, and then slip in an affiliate link at the back end to finish up the story. But even before that you should have already welcomed them to your brand so they get to know you a little right away so that when they see you in the inbox, they are like….ah, that’s Harold, I remember him. Wonder what he has to say today? Don’t be a stranger. You should mail them frequently, if not everyday. If nothing more than to touch base with them and get some feedback from them, tell them a story, give them an update on you personally or professionally, etc. Just stay relevant!!!
So for the Fourth step this is very simple. Don’t use a lot of images, PERIOD!!! You will most likely end up in the promo tab.
Fifth and next to last step, is to keep your sign-off short. Don’t cram you signature full of fluff. The inbox algorithms will not smile favorably upon your mail.
And the Sixth step is to test. Test until you emails hit all of the inbox varieties AOL/HOTMAIL/GMAIL, etc. If you are not landing in the Inbox in all of these, go back over the first 5 steps, tweak and test. You can take advantage of the built SPAM tester in Aweber to help with that part of test.
My conclusion is what use is an email list if you aren’t hitting the Inbox. You are basically, pardon my Francais, pissing your money away and wasting your time. You will never be successful if you aren’t getting your message to your customers and potential buyers.
Til next time,
Harold
