Email Marketing And Web Communication
By Ross Storey, Sat Dec 10th

There’s an old saying ‘Manners maketh the man (or woman)’ andthis still applies in the 21st Century, even though everythingnow seems to happen twice as fast. Most people respond muchbetter if you treat them respectfully. People appreciate beingspoken to politely and you can definitely include consumershere. Yes, if you are into Internet marketing, it may be ahi-tech world, where bits and bytes circle the globe in theblinking of an eye, but people still respond better to beingspoken to as a friendly equal. This particularly goes forlanguage in advertisements.

Here are some important things to remember when you are emailingsomeone with a sales pitch.

1.DON’T YELL WITH CAPITALS: By all means use ‘caps’ in yourmessage to highlight key points, but don’t write whole sentencesin capitals. This is the online equivalent of screaming insomeone’s ear. Bolding key points is a much better alternativeto capitalizing.

2.Be TIDY With FORMATTING: I read a lot of sales emails everyday, and it never ceases to amaze me how so many email‘salespeople’ – perhaps we can call them ‘e-sellers’ - don’tbother to properly ‘dress up’ their email messages. There aremany available email message formatting systems available, likeFormatit.com, which you can use to make your emails presentable,and very likely, more profitable. Line breaks, you see, behavebadly in cyberspace, and, although your email may look fine asyou type it, the message could have line breaks all over theplace, when it’s received. Sloppy presentation like this, sendsout a clear message that does not favour people buying from you.Any sloppy line breaks are hard to read. An ideal line length isabout 50 – 60 spaces.

3.Write Your Ads Like You’re SPEAKING to an INDIVIDUAL: When youemail someone you are, in effect, striking up a conversationwith them. You are hoping they’ll take the time to ‘listen’. Alittle bit of humour, a little bit of your own personal style,will not go astray in your message. Be friendly and be polite.Emails that are abrupt or too direct, can be read as insultingor critical.

4.Say PLEASE and THANK You a Lot: As a web marketer, I alwaysstart my messages by thanking people for ‘clicking in’ to mymessage. After all, they have taken the trouble to open myemail, ahead of possibly tens or even hundreds of others, whothey have not bothered to open. I always thank them for theirtrouble. I know that when people are polite and thank me, Ialways feel better towards them and welcome the respect.

5.Keep Your email Ads PUNCHY and SHORT: Email, by nature, is atime-saving tool. It’s quick and it’s to the point. Keep youmessage to the point and don’t try to cram too many ‘salespitches’ in the one email. It’s very unlikely that people willread the whole thing from top to bottom, so keep your selling

tosix paragraphs or so. This is for emails you may be sending to asafelist. If you are emailing your regular mailing list, perhapswith you newsletter, then you can afford to follow the regularformat, which may be quite long. This is because you newslettersubscribers generally know what to expect because they hopefullyhave read more than one edition.

6.ENTICE Your Readers to READ to the BOTTOM: If you want to senda longer than usual e-mail sales pitch, it’s good strategy toput a paragraph in, near the top, saying something like ‘If youread to the bottom of this email, you’ll find a great no costdownload’. Teasers like this are very effective and may evenprompt readers to immediately scroll down to the bottom to checkout what they can get.

7.AVOID the Word FREE in Your Message: Why, because the spamfilters will get you. While FREE might be the most attractiveword in email marketing, it’s also one of those that spamfilters will likely detect to block your message. You need to bea bit creative. Instead of FREE, why not use words like ‘nocost, ‘gratis’ ‘give-away’, ‘gift’ or ‘bonus’.

8.AVOID Too Many SYMBOLS: Those of us old enough to remembercartoon comic strips, will remember how cartoonists often usedsymbols to show a character ‘swearing’. Such as, ‘Why You #@!*’Too many symbols in your message could have the same effect –making your message confusing and unfriendly to readers. Usesymbols sparingly and to draw attention to important points.

9.DON’T Have Too Many BLOCK Paragraphs: Although grammar puristswill tell you that paragraphs can have many sentences, so longas they are on the same topic, use short paragraphs of only oneor two sentences. Short is better, because these days, people donot want to read great slabs of text – they will simply tuneout. You can also highlight key points in your sales message,simply by isolating them in one lonely sentence.

10.EMAIL People As You Would Like THEM to Email YOU: This soundsa bit biblical, but really the same applies in general life. Tryto put yourself in the reader’s shoes after you’ve finished yourmessage. Would you like to have such an email sent to yourin-box. Would you find such an email polite and friendly? Ifanything ‘jolts’ as you read your own email, make sure yousoften it with further friendly communication.

You will likely find that showing some ‘manners’ in your emailcommunications, will translate into greater profits and morebuyers. Thank you very much for reading this article and bestwishes to you in your endeavors.

About the author:Ross Storey is a 52-year-old public relations and marketingconsultant who has been involved in web marketing and design formore than a decade. http://bestwebcopy.zapz.bizhttp://www.quokkasoft.com http://bestprographics.zapz.biz

(Copyright © 2005 Ross Storey - Please feel free to publish thisarticle, so long as you keep this resource section complete)