Email Marketing Campaign Help

[philturner]

Hi Guys,

I’m new to the forums, so allow me to say “Thanks in advance” for any and all help! I’ve been reading many of the other posts and the comments and ideas being exchanged here are really valuable.

I am embarking on a new marketing initiative for my company and am jumping into email marketing.

I’ve just signed up for Elite Email Marketing and as part of the subscription they will make me a free custom template, which I think is great since other places wanted to charge me and arm and a leg for that.

They’ve said they can build whatever I want and they have given me some ‘best practices’ guidelines. But, I wanted to ask the community for some input.

Really my questions are, how many small articles should I include in my newsletter? Does 5 make it too busy? Does 2 not give the user enough content? Each article tends to only be a couple paragraphs. I don’t want to make the email to cluttered with text, but I don’t want to sell myself short by including so little.

What’s the best way to make use of images? I was thinking an image to go along with each article, but I didn’t know if that makes it too image intensive or if that’s exactly what I need to make it not look so text heavy.

Any thoughts, opinions, or ideas would be greatly appreciated?

I already have a rough idea in mind of what I want it to look like, and obviously it will match my company’s color scheme, so once I have some input on the body, I’ll be all set.

Thanks!

[Duncan Pollock]

Elite has, I'm sure, a newsletter of their own that will progressively "teach" you how to get the best results. Their support people are also likely to have answers to many of your questions. Not the least, too, you can browse the web for e-mail HowTo info sources.
However, you could do a whole lot worse than, if only as a starting point, signing up (for free) at: http://www.bluepenguindevelopment.com/
Michael Katz has a refreshing sense of humour but uses it to continuously put out excellent advice and pointers.
As regards to your specific question, though, the one right answer is to be guided by your instincts. Too short, too long? No images, a handful, an excess? Etc, etc? Just do what you think will work -- and then fine tune things as you go along and begin to get a sufficient sense of how your e-mails are being received and, it's to be hoped, read.

Duncan

[philturner]

Hi Duncan,

Thanks for the reply.

The people at Eliteweb have been really forthcoming with the teachings on how to achieve the best results with email marketing, and I’ve done a fair bit of research on the internet. I hadn’t come across the Blue Penguin Development website, but I’m going to head over there right now and signup for the newsletter.

I ultimately think you’re right about going with my instinct. I suspect no matter where I start it will be an evolutionary process to find the right balance.

Thanks!

(P.S. You live in Niagara-on-the-Lake…. I love it there! So beautiful!)

[Duncan Pollock]

Glad you've found my (loose) thoughts useful.
But you might also care to take a look at http://www.grokdotcom.com/ This is another (free) newsletter I subscribe to and it's jam packed with good ideas. Also full of (wacky) humour, but Bryan Eisenberg, the author, is one of the recognized e-mail gurus.

Cheers

Duncan