It is time to get scientific! Well, at least more knowledgeable about your email marketing. You are ready!

While Emercury.net can assist you with all facets of your email marketing campaigns, there are subjects you must consider for success.

To optimize your database for the best email personalization, keep in mind — the more you can focus your message on the customer, who is your reader, the greater the effect your message will have.

A data strategy is required when utilizing email marketing. Business owners want to drive targeted email communication and marketing offers. Emails permit click measurements, which allows for easy ROI tracking. Another opportunity would be to optimize the click call to action with landing pages. It is important that marketers continually test, optimize, and refine all aspects of their strategy.

Remember, welcome messages are important because they reassure prospects that your company has a pulse, and they also reduce SPAM complaints by reminding new subscribers they have been added to your list. Welcome messages are also critical for response rates. They are an important tool for prospects to interact with your company. Many of your email recipients are presumably in a buying mode. They might even have other browser windows open to your competitors when your welcome message arrives in their inboxes. In that sense, welcome messages do a lot more than just tell new subscribers they have been added to a list. To improve response, the welcome email should also contain the following:

1. A personal message from the CEO, founder, or owner;
2. A coupon or other incentive to buy;
3. Links to your most popular entry-level products;
4. A good testimonial or two.

Most importantly, welcome messages must serve as two-way communication tools. Replies to welcome messages should be encouraged, and you should respond to inquiries immediately.

Other tips to consider:

1. Set a goal to tailor at least one email message a month per subscriber.  We all have some data on every subscriber – use this data.
2. Consider a different subject line for different segments, based on interest level. Replace generic promotions with specifics – a targeted whitepaper or an untapped product feature. Track performance by segment against generic messages.
3. If 30% open your email that means 70% did not find your message helpful, or did not bother to select it from their inbox clutter. The impact of inactive subscribers was never neutral, but now carries even more risk. Subscribers will quickly block (complain by clicking the Report SPAM button) or unsubscribe from senders who annoy them – which is any brand sending irrelevant, poorly timed or too frequent offers, regardless of permission. Plus, ISPs like Yahoo!, Gmail, and Hotmail are increasingly looking at engagement metrics to determine the value of each marketer or publisher.
4. The only way to make money is to either increase revenue or reduce costs, or both.  In email marketing, the “cost” side is counted in lost opportunity. When a subscriber complains (clicks the Report SPAM button), they are gone forever. Complaint and deliverability data are essential parts of a good email marketing optimization effort.

Finally, while using these techniques can help your business succeed, there is even more you can do to tip the odds in your favor. You will want to become familiar with a technique that is called marketing optimization. This is a technique that is intricately connected to data mining. With market optimization, you will take a group of offers and customers, and after reviewing the limits of the campaign, you will use data mining to decide which marketing offers should be made to specific customers.

*Did You Know — Response rates are almost always higher for new subscribers to an email list. According to the “Email Marketing Benchmark Guide” subscribers click through at a 25 percent higher rate in their first month than in their second, and 67 percent higher in the first month than after the first year.