Poor email marketing – much like Rodney Dangerfield, it gets no respect.  I am not sure that email marketing ever got its just due, but now with all of the talk about Web 2.0, user-generated content, blogs, podcasts, social networks, video, and mobile, you would think that email marketing has gone the way of the manual typewriter.  That’s unfortunate because while email marketing faces challenges from the proliferation of spam and phishing, it remains one of the best tools in a marketer’s tool box.

A recently released report from Forrester, E-Mail Marketing Comes of Age, found that email is now used by 97% of all consumers, and consumers who buy products advertised via email spend 138% more than typical non-readers.  Additionally, over 50 percent of consumers who open and read email marketing messages are likely to purchase other items on impulse, and 50% of those who open and read email marketing messages are more likely to purchase impulse items once they get to the site.

Now, that doesn’t mean everyone should just start blasting emails out to as many people as possible.  Consumers are frustrated about getting too many messages in their inbox and have started reporting legitimate email as spam because it is easier than unsubscribing.  Like any other marketing communication, it has to be relevant to be effective.  The following are some suggestions on how to improve your email marketing:

• If you aren’t currently sending email campaigns, seriously consider it.  Start by developing an email marketing strategy that addresses issues like what you want to accomplish with the campaigns (e.g. generate leads, maintain awareness, etc.),  what value you are actually providing the consumer, how frequently you are going to sending campaigns, and how is success defined.
• If you already are sending campaigns, re-visit your stategy, addressing the same issues mentioned in the first bullet point.
• Track results like opens, click-thrus, and conversions.  Conversions are especially important because it ultimately tells you how successful your overall campaign is.  Conversions might be products sold, leads generated, registering for a seminar, or downloading a whitepaper. 
• Ensure that your subscriber list contains email addresses that have legitimately requested to receive email from your company.
• Verify that you are Can-Spam compliant.
• Develop a schedule for sending emails that you feel you can commit too.  Most companies underestimate the time it takes to generate, edit, and approve copy, even for email campaigns.
• Ensure that the design properly reflects your brand.  Just because you can use Photoshop doesn’t mean you should.  If you didn’t design your website or marketing materials, you probably shouldn’t be designing your e-mail campaigns.
• Seriously consider using an email marketing service provider (ESP).  Not only do ESPs help with deliverability, but they offer features like automated emails and dynamic content tools that provide real power to marketers.
• Test, test, test.  You should experiment with subject lines, day and time of delivery, and body copy.  You never can be certain what will get the best results until you try it.
• Promote your subscriber sign-up on your website and whereever else you can.
• Send a welcome message when someone signs-up.  This provides an opportunity to re-affirm what types of messages you will be sending and how often they will be sent and request that they add you to their safe-senders list.
• Make it easy to unsubscribe.  If a consumer doesn’t value your emails, you would much rather have her unsubscribe than report the message as spam.
• Given the number of different email clients used by consumers to read email (e.g. Outlook, Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail) and the effort made by ISPs and others to control spam, it is more important than ever that email campaigns are designed in a way to help ensure that they will be delivered and read.  Use a best practices guide like the ones provided by CheetahMail or search on ‘email design best practices’ to help.
• Subscribe to competitor’s newsletters to see what they are doing.