Referenceo: Shinynews.it

Before giving the start to our action of  email marketing, is a good thing to adopt some small  device tat makeand less s desirable an d less exposed to trash our letter.

With a good idea and a discreet customers database, we have to do only the most delicate and important work: the real drafting of our commercial release. But the writing of the email needs also of a very useful preparatory phase.

In fact, the fate of most of e-mail of a commercial is to be not even read. We must therefore act in such a way as to minimize the possibility that our e-mail is treated as spam to be deleted or not to open.

Spam is the enemy of e-mail marketing
The level of spam circulating online is very high now. Every two communications, one is junk and - mostly - does not interest you. Many times, then, of these e-mails convey viruses, Trojans and other Internet unhappy surprises. What each user normally does before opening individual e-mail, view and evaluate the e-mail sender and the purpose thereof. If these data are ambiguous or misleading, it is likely that e-mail will go directly to the trash or is not even open. Many surfers have appropriately set up a barrier with respect to e-mail ambiguous through the filters of the e-mail program or through more sophisticated software (firewall, anti-virus, anti-spam). These filters are normally activated by the presence of words in the object that is supposed to - a priori - have to do with spam: free, offer, trade, promotion and other similar terms are prime candidates to block your e-mail .

It starts from the header
Therefore, it is absolutely clear that the first thing to take care in drafting a text for an action of e-mail marketing is the message header.

OBJECT - In general, the subject of the message should be professional and responsive to the content of the message. Best to avoid generic terms like "commercial communication" or "commercial message". As to avoid formulas that leave presage promises, offers unique and exceptional and the like. The user, even with low experience, will not believe. In addition, the terms are to be avoided typical of this type of communication, probably because registati as key words to activate a filter. Better to look catchy titles, but serious and reliable, possibly also including the bidder: "A Month by the sea with CompanyName", "CompanyName Camilleri relied upon", "Mari and the Ligurian mountains in the farm CompanyName".

THE RECIPIENT - The ideal would be to send each message to each e-mail address, placing it in the "A. .." the new message. Operation, in the best of cases, long and complex. At least, do not make the mistake of putting all the e-mail, clearly visible in the same field "A. .." message. In this box, you put a generic address of your company, on which verify the actual transmission. The addresses of all the recipients at least put in the "Bcc ..." or (much better) create a distribution list automatically (by putting all recipients that want to reach a new group). In this way, each user will not see the addresses of the other. If you proceed to the creation of a group, then you have the foresight to predict responses to address the group on a farm so that users are not in your mailbox response messages from other users.

THE SENDER - Use the address corporate staff who prepared the commercial offer could mean closer to potential customers with a familiar tone. However, the risk is that customers do not take seriously the offer (seeing only from the header) because too familiar. Moreover, in case of acceptance or reply to our e-mail, the manager may have his mailbox overloaded, at the expense, perhaps, of other corporate communications of equal importance. Much better, for their professionalism and for convenience, create a dedicated account, that may already face reveal the company's professionalism. For example a "Customer Service CompanyName" or similar. Even in this case, pay attention to those terms that can run into the filter ("sales department" or "sales office" or similar are definitely at risk).

THE FORMAT OF THE LETTER
Last element, so to speak, preparatory to our e-mail is the format. The choice is between HTML and plain text (ASCII). Both have advantages and disadvantages, and the choice can (and should) be made from time to time. Meanwhile, you can take as a good rule of thumb to use, however, common and easy to read font (eg Arial). Legibility is also reflected in the use of an appropriate contrast between the background and the text itself. In addition, whatever the choice for the size, you should never send texts too heavy (not too long, but we'll see later). Despite the spread of broadband, most users still connect with the classic dial-up. We make sure that everyone can quickly download our message, so seize the line for 5-10 minutes is definitely not a good introduction to the potential customer. E-mail of 30-40 KB is bad enough: we try to never go beyond this they already important.

HTML or ASCII?
Both methods, as mentioned, have advantages and disadvantages. The plain ASCII text - in addition to not being able to convey in any case the virus in the body of the letter - is much lighter and certainly lends itself to communication with few frills, first of all, being black on a white background. Using it, you can not focus on creativity and interactivity. We must use it for communication very professional, information dry and communicative value. You must supply an indication of contacts of a different type from the Internet (for example, telephone or fax). The HTML has the opposite characteristics: that is particular to underline with different colors different offers to call up web pages with further details of tenders, to capture the attention, to include images. Of course, an e-mail of this type is likely to weigh much more.
The ultimate solution is not there. You have to make an assessment of the content of the message and the target to which we turn and decided from time to time which is better. After all, does not even have great importance, provided that you comply with the general considerations are valid always, on readability and overall weight of the mail.