Instead, you can take a peek at these 6 quick fire insider secrets to email marketing. You’ll immediately be able to improve your campaigns, or begin a brand new campaign without having to struggle or stumble.

Quick Fire Insider Secrets to Email Marketing

1. Personality is better than a sales pitch: We all deal with sales pitches all day long. The commercials we see and hear, the advertisements we read, the pushy salespeople at stores we visit and of course the emails we receive. It’s hard to differentiate yourself from the crowd when all you’re doing is offering a sales pitch. Instead, inject some honest personality into your email campaigns. Your list members will be more engaged, you’ll build up more trust with them and you’ll stand out from the pack.

2. Too much of a good thing is bad: This is coming from a person who normally doesn’t agree with this statement. If we’re talking too much of a good thing, like pizza, or Italian sandwiches, then I don’t think that’s possible. But if we’re talking about the frequency of your email newsletters and communications, then it certainly is.

I don’t care if I’m the founder of the company in question, if I’m receiving an email once a day and I thought I was going to be getting a once per week newsletter, I’m deleting your email, skimming past it or unsubscribing. Set up expectations for your email frequency and don’t push the boundary towards excessive communication.

3. 20% of emails don’t get delivered: I’m not talking about bounces here, I’m talking about 20% of emails that you thought were delivered. It’s a startling number, and it speaks to the importance of not making any assumptions about the success of your campaign. Always find concrete evidence to the effectiveness of your campaigns and always work on improving your list quality. Not blindly trusting the stats you receive or hear about is one of the huge insider secrets to email marketing that you should know.

4. 94% of email is spam: Not like any of us needed a statistic to be reminded of this fact, but we all are inundated with spam messages in our inbox. That means that if you want your emails to be read by your list members you really have to work hard on following established best practices. That means short, concise and accurate subject lines, displayed “from” information, qualified, permission based list members and more.

5. Cheap email marketing exists: Yes, there is such a thing as cheap email marketing and it’s one of the best insider secrets to email marketing that you can be given. In fact, many of the best email marketing providers are extremely affordable for any sized business or operation. Even better, they all allow for free trials so you can make the final call based on experience. For example, you can sign up for an iContact free trial with plans starting at $9.95 per month, a Constant Contact free trial with plans starting at $15 per month, a Stream Send free trial with plans starting at $20 per month or an AWeber free trial with plans starting at $19 per month.

6. You’re not done with tests when you’re finished with college: But don’t worry, these tests are certainly a good thing. You should be segmenting your list and sending out emails with slight variations. Compare the results and track which variables perform better so that you can optimize your campaigns to the best of your ability. One-size-fits-all email newsletters and campaigns simply don’t cut it anymore. You’ll be missing out on a wealth of valuable data. Start segmenting, testing and optimizing immediately.

If you didn’t know… now you do. Use these insider secrets to email marketing wisely.

More important than that is understanding the answer to the question “what is email marketing?” in the real world. We all receive plenty of email marketing messages each and every day, most of them we lump into the SPAM category. They are wastes of time and space, they slow down and infect our computers, they try to sell us enhancement creams or steal our bank account information and of course they give the rest of us a bad name.

Therefore email marketing in the real world has fast taken on the definition of SPAM.  Again from Wikipedia, SPAM is, “The abuse of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately.”

In other words, email marketing for consumers is fast becoming aligned with fraudulent garbage. For sketchy, illicit or downright illegal business operations, email marketing has taken on the definition of the cheapest way to exploit loads of money from the unsuspecting public at large by poking and prodding repeatedly ad nauseam until somebody purposely or inadvertently caves in.

Now, what should email marketing be? I.M.P.O.R.T.A.N.T.

Now that we know what email marketing really is, by the literal definition and by the interpretations of both consumers and spammers, we should take a look at what email marketing should be. Email marketing should be I.M.P.O.R.T.A.N.T.

• Insightful
• Marketing
• (that’s)
• Personalized
• Optimized
• Relevant
• Targeted
• And
• Never
• Tired

Let’s break this down piece by piece so we have as clear a definition as we can. Email marketing should be insightful marketing. In other words, we should be using all of our judgment, knowledge, expertise and experience to deliver quality, handcrafted messages that not only will produce results, but also speak to the desires of our audience.

Email marketing should be personalized. First, that means building a permission based list of people who really want to hear from you. From there, it means using your name and showing pictures of yourself so your audience knows who you are. It means segmenting your list so that different people receive messages containing what they are most interested in, rather than a generic message of no real value.

Email marketing should be optimized. You should be testing every aspect of your email campaigns to see what works the best. Try different subject lines, content, layouts, color schemes, delivery times and more.

Email marketing should be relevant and targeted. Once again, segment your list into groups and learn what your audience is really interested in. Make your messages timely and full of valuable information that people can really use. Don’t just send what you feel like talking about; send what people want to hear.

Finally, email marketing should never be tired. This means that you shouldn’t keep sending out the same retread emails over and over again and you shouldn’t keep using that same template you had from your first email campaign in 2002.

Refresh your campaigns…bring in guests from other websites or companies to write on special topics…change your layouts so that they are more visually appealing and convert better in the process…think of new, fresh ideas for every email and always be trying new things… stay ahead of the curve and integrate new technology, services and methods instead of playing catch-up down the road.

So how can I answer the question, “what is email marketing”? How about, I.M.P.O.R.T.A.N.T.

The point being that if you use email survey software in the right way, you’ll see a boatload of great results. Here are a few tips to help you make the most from any customer satisfaction survey software.

The best way to keep your list members happy is to know what they want from you. Your viewpoint of what you think your customers and prospects want to know, and what the truth actually is may be quite different from one another. You may think that everyone is dying to see your “Inside the CEO’s brain!” newsletter, but in reality everyone signed up to your newsletter expecting to see discounts and periodic sales or special offers.

Customer satisfaction survey software can help you get to the truth of the matter very easily. In fact, just one check box question can provide you with all of the information you need. Ask your list members, “What kinds of messages would you enjoy seeing from us?” Allow them to select as many as they want, and provide a text box for suggestions as well. You’ll quickly determine what people expect from you.

Ask them a few other multiple choice questions as well to find out even more answers. Ask them questions such as, what do you enjoy the most from receiving our emails, what do you like the least about our communications, what would make you happier or more involved with our company, and on down the line. You’re essentially asking the same thing each time, but by asking it in different ways you can really hone in on the specifics.

Another key question to ask is “How often do you want to hear from us?” Even when someone is interested in your emails, too many of them can quickly turn them off. Conversely, too few emails and people will forget about you… quickly.

The more you know about the expectations and desires of your list members, the more adequately you can serve them and convert them into returning clients and customers. The best and simplest way to find out detailed, firsthand information such as this is through customer satisfaction survey software.

You can use all of this information to completely overhaul your email campaigns, or you can use the information obtained from customer satisfaction survey software to segment your list into more specific groups. For example, if 25% of your list actually was highly interested in your “Inside the CEO’s brain!” newsletter, you can segment those people and continue sending the messages to them without alienating the rest of your list.

I also recommend that you ask basic questions like what kinds of messages do you want to receive from us and how often would you like to hear from us when someone initially signs up to your list. It will keep that person happier from the beginning, and you’ll be able to target them more effectively right from the start.

Remember that happy list members put money into your pocket. Utilize the best email survey software programs to keep your list as happy as possible.