You've set up your email marketing software (or service). You have your subscribers ready. Now you're finally ready to tune up the part of your email marketing that will inspire action and build relationships. The important front line to your entire direct electronic marketing plan: the email message.

This is a very critical point in your email efforts. The same attention to detail you used to shop your email provider, examine its products, pricing and proposals, and test its support capabilities, should also be applied to your email marketing message. So lets tune this message up, shall we?

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Find a Consistent Voice

The narrative voice of your email message -- the voice you're sending directly to customers -- is of such importance that it would be worth your time to find the person on your staff who can write a great-sounding letter, if it's not you.

I recommend: You probably already know who this person is: He or she is the one who writes the outbound company correspondence you typically haven't paid much attention to in the past. So, you should start by motivating this person to begin composing some extremely important customer correspondence via email.

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Make sure the From field is squared away

The 'From' field of the email message has incredible importance, not only with the effectiveness of your email campaigns, but with your product branding and service reputation as well. It’s the first thing your subscribers will see when they get their first email from you. And you only get one first impression, right?

I recommend: The "From" field should either be the name of your company, the name of your newsletter, or the name of your product or service. It should be immediately recognizable by your customers. It should not be a name or word they wouldn't recognize, nor should it be in all capital letters. It also should not say "free" or change with each issue.

If you need any more pointers on what your "From" field should not say, look over the messages in the trashcan of your own email inbox.

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Don't forget the subject line

Technically, the subject line should be treated with the same reverence as the From field. Some quick rules of thumb: Don’t make the subject line text so long that it flows out of a typical visible display area. Also, if possible, the subject line should state the nature of the newsletter and/or where it's from, if this is not apparent in the 'From' field.

I recommend: For readability purposes, the subject line should be no longer than 40 characters long, give or take a few spaces. "New product announcement from Yourfirm.com" is 38 characters long, as an example.

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Personalize your message if possible

A personalized salutation in your email campaigns is critical. It separates your subscription-based, opt-in email campaign from unsolicited spam and phishing email. Personalized messages also serve as reminders to customers that they have indeed subscribed to your important email communications. Most email marketers would agree that addressing customers on a first-name basis is the quickest, easiest way to build interactive relationships via email.

I recommend: At the minimum, your email should contain a personalized first name salutation. This is accomplished by inserting a merge field in your email message that will automatically insert the first names of your customers from your database. A typical merge field looks like this

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As a rule, the first name merge field should not have commas, semicolons, or any other punctuation around it. This is just in case the first name column in your database has no name listed in this field. As an FYI: Any email marketing solution worth its weight would give you this important customization feature.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Compose your email message with care, following the practical tips in this guide. Get somebody on staff who can write well to be the voice of the company. Get someone else to proof it. Don't use a junky email program that will walk your customers after the first send. Personalize and test your important direct marketing message. Test your message, then test the message again.