Top Ways to Improve Your Email Marketing - Page 7/10

2. Fire Up the Welcome Wagon

Prepare a special mailing, sent a day or two after the welcome message, designed to be your subscriber’s guide to your company, brand, or Web site. This should provide value to newcomers while also keeping your name top of mind. Include these elements:

- An exclusive email offer for new subscribers.
- Links to services or remote but useful areas of your site subscribers might not find on their own.
- A link to your most recent newsletter or offers they may have missed.
- Links to archived news stories or special-interest articles. This not only increases your utility to subscribers but also provides more exposure for material you’ve already produced.

3. Request Opinions

After your subscribers have been around for a couple of weeks or so, send a survey or invitation to fill out a more detailed preference form. Again, this mailing serves two purposes:

- You get more detailed information about your subscribers, which will allow you to better target your future mailings.
- You give your subscribers a value-oriented reason to interact with you, which should further cement your relationship with them and provide less reason to hit the “report spam” button.

As usual, provide an unsubscribe link, but be sure it links to a page where they can tell you why they’re leaving.

One Final Tip

Scatter your email opt-in links everywhere: on each page of your Web site; on your landing pages for people who find you through paid or organic search, in customer-service email, and anywhere else a link or blank is appropriate. Then, test your opt-in process to make sure it works.