Netiquette Core Concepts to Generate More Leads and Interest in Your Products, Services or Messages!

 

How To Generate More Leads From Your Email

When it comes to email marketing, the best subject lines tell what’s inside, and the worst subject lines sell what’s inside  —   MailChimp

The subject field in an email.  Besides your name and company, this will be the first item a message reader will see. Therefore, this should never be blank. Remember, the goal is to have the email you send, opened and read.  The action of not having a subject has only negative connotations. The least of these is that the author was lazy or neglectful. The worst of these is that the message is a possible spam (at least to the spam software). Either way, the initial reaction to any email omitting a subject will be negative. If it is indeed viewed this way, then the odds of the message being read by a first-time recipient surely decrease dramatically. If the message is important, such as a résumé, introduction, or emergency, the negative implications to the sender may be quite significant. So, always include a subject description. Provide proper punctuation but do not include a period at the end. Avoid such words as free, help, percent off, reminder,  and avoid as they will affect your email open rates.

Even when there is a subject description, it may not be adequate, appropriate, or accurate to the content of the message itself. Too short of a subject, such as “info,” can also discourage someone from opening and reading the message. Conversely, a long email subject line might have a negative effect either for lack of interest (because of the way it is described), lack of clarity or because it gives away too much of the content. As a rule, it is best to restrict the subject description from two or three to ten words. Subject lines should be simple and succinct.  Ensure that a subject line is not the whole message with blank text in the email body. Some find it chic to split a message that begins in the subject line and continues into the text itself. This does not accomplish anything and as often as not, it may be lost (or misunderstood) in the reader’s transition from reading the subject line to opening the text itself. While entering the subject-line content, it is best to accurately repeat content as well as present a bridge to something important to the recipient such as “Schedule of your classes,” or “Recap of our meeting today.” Leave it to the body of text to explain attachments or provide expanded details. This has many effects (implications) on not only generating interest but also causing a rejection by setting a positive or negative tone.

Typefaces: The less clutter you have in your email, the more conversions you’ll experience. Don’t junk up your email with more than 2, or at maximum, 3 typefaces.  Personalize. Promote your resources.

 By the way, this blog is written primarily in Arial!

	Best (San Serif)	Worst (Serif)
10 Point	Arial Verdana Trebuchet Garamond	Times New Roman Georgia Century
12 Point	Arial Helvetica Trebuchet Courier (Monospace)	Times New Roman Century Palatino Georgia

Keep the Main Message and Call-to-Action Above the Fold: If your main call-to-action falls below the fold, then as many as 70% of recipients won’t see it. Also, any call-to-action should be repeated at least 3 times throughout the email.
Keep Your Email crisply formatted and kept the width of the email to seven inches or less.
Put Your Logo in the Upper Left-Hand Side of the Email: Eye tracking studies have found that people instinctively look for logos in the upper left-hand side of emails. Put your logo in the upper left-hand side to ensure it gets the most visibility.
Compelling Subject Lines are critical: A good subject line should contain no more than 30 to 50 characters. It should also create a sense of urgency, and it should give readers some indication of what to expect once they open the email.
Closely Tie Emails to Landing Pages: Your landing page should match the email in terms of headline, copy, and content. The look and feel of your landing page should also match the email. And make sure you’re utilizing tracking tools to see which emails and landing pages performed the best.
Conduct a 5-Second Test: Send a copy of the email to a friend or business associate. Can they quickly tell what your call-to-action is? If so, you’re golden. If not, keep working.

There are a lot of new tools in a marketer’s tool chest that are getting a good amount of attention these days. But don't forget about old, yet reliable and faithful tools that can still really help you get the most out of your marketing initiatives.

The primary goal is to introduce your product or service in a compelling way:
Keep your email short and to the point

1. Your email message must be laser-focused on your target audience and their specific wants and needs
2. Include a specific call-to-action attached to a compelling offer that’s appropriate for your target customer
3. Your call-to-action should offer access to content on your website that the prospects will consider valuable. A standard offer today can include a product demo, a whitepaper or a free report
4. Be sure you send these prospects to a designated landing page where they can register for the information by entering their first name and email address.

Newsletter
The easiest and most effective way to build loyalty and gain trust from your prospects is to establish your expertise. A newsletter sent by email offers you an excellent opportunity to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry by publishing regular articles on topics and trends in your area of expertise.

A newsletter is the perfect email marketing tool to inform and educate while building credibility for what you sell. Newsletters provide the content your target market wants - Give your prospects what they need to develop new skills or grow their business. The size and content in your newsletter depends on your financial and non-financial resources. It can be a clear and concise 500 word article focusing on a single topic that you write, or a complex collection of articles collected from different online content sites.

Re-purpose previous marketing content for your newsletter. Case studies, articles and blogs can all be highlighted in your newsletter.  Always include links to different sections of your website that are relevant to the content within your email and archive your newsletters on your website for later reference. Include links to your company blog and social media pages. Include links that are calls-to-action like “Schedule a call”.  Share icons such as “Email this article,” “Like this article on Facebook,” “Retweet this article” and strategically place them within your newsletter so readers can easily spread your content across their social media networks.

Offer emails
And that’s not all. Google states there are three core reasons as to why it prefers responsive design. In its official statement, Google explicitly says:  Using a single URL for a piece of content makes it easier for your users to interact with, share, and link to your content, and a single URL for the content helps Google’s algorithms assign the indexing properties for the content.

User yourself as a guide and ask yourself “Would I open and read this email?”  We all take but a few seconds to decide to read or delete.  Put yourself in your readers place and you will do well. 

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In addition to this blog, I maintain a radio show on BlogtalkRadio  and an online newsletter via paper.li.I have established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and  Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and I have been contributing to the blogs Everything Email and emailmonday . My work has appeared in numerous publications and I have presented to groups such as The Breakfast Club of NJ and  PSG of Mercer County, NJ.

I am the president of Tabula Rosa Systems, a “best of breed” reseller of products for communications, email, network management software, security products and professional services.  We are currently developing an email IQ rating system, Netiquette IQ, which promotes the fundamentals outlined in my book.

Over the past twenty-five years, I have enjoyed a dynamic and successful career and have attained an extensive background in IT and electronic communications by selling and marketing within the information technology marketplace. Anyone who would like to review the book and have it posted on my blog or website, please contact me paul@netiquetteiq.com.