Emails are more then who, what when, where, and why.They are many things to many people but if no one reads them it serves no purpose. 1.You need a catchy personalized subject line that refers to the product or service. Include a date or many of the spam blockers will discard it and all your work is lost. 2.Never use capitals, multiple exclamation points. Don't illustrate with slashes, dots or dashes. 3.No more then six lines and no wider then 65 characters. Especially on your introductory email. 4.Know exactly what you want to accomplish. Is it going to qualify leads? Or generate further leads? 5.To make a highly effective email it should indicate it is a new product, service or new price.Identify that its a saleor specially discounted price. Offer a bonus or premiu or specially discounted price. Offer a bonus or premium for purchasing or responding with a time limit to the offer that stimulates a prompt response. 6.Did you think about the type of person receiving the email? People for ages have been trying to figure out people and their personalities in an easy concise manner. My friend Michael Dloughy simplified this into colors (I will explain in greater deatail in another thread)Simply a yellow personality is a nurturer and wants a email that asks about their family before business. A green personality is analytical and you will never have enough information on one email to satisfy them. Yellow and Green make up 70% of the population.Then the Red is down to business person "just the facts". Blue personality is the fun person in the office but needs so much information two page email maybe will do it. 7.Keep track of your customers personal information and questions, The FAQ are put on the FAQ page.Please respond to your customers concerns quickly and personally. This creates goodwill, even if their angry, admit your mistake Ask them how you can fix it. You are building loyalty in customers. The more information you collect now the better you will serve them in the future. 8.Always put contact information in the email in a easy place to find and on every email you send out.The same goes for your website contact information is your life blood. This is where your customer service page becomes important to add those FAQ, names, emails, phone numbers of people you can help. You need to build loyality. You may not always get a sale with every email, but your building more then that. 9.Use emails for sending greetings of birthdays, anniversarys and/or other special occasions. Thank you messages for their business. 10.You can make this a campaign sending prewritten nonpersonal emails but the customer will see right through that.Think about what you want in your busy day. How often do you want to be interrupted by a strangers verses someone who is starting to deserve your trust or already has it. Emails is a great tool but don't abuse them. Some of the scholars in the MLM industry believe a email a day is the correct number you be the judge. My next thread will be in more details on colors so till then. Ten Things Colors Can Tell You. Frank Eckert http://www.adlandpro

HI Frank,  This is very interesting.  I am  wondering if  we change colors from day to day or hour to hour.  At times I open and read an  entire e-mail that I believe I would do neither on another occasion. In other words we can be quite fickle and change with the moods  and activities influencing us. Also, I wanted to add that e-mails can always be tweaked until results are acceptable.  You gave some good pointers about punctuation that I was unaware of.   It is frustrating sending e-mails to downline to assist them and I can never know if they actually read or even receive them.  I ask how I can help them, but how can you know what they need if they never answer.  Sometimes, I wish they would tell me to leave them alone ! ! ! !

Hi Frank,

Thanks for the article.  I use email advertising mainly in safelists, and I've found that for that type of advertising changing the headline every time a mailing goes out causes more people to open the mail.  Also, shorter is better for safelist advertising.

I've seen the info about personality colors, and that works well if your business includes in-person contact.  In dealing with people purely in online communication, the old question 'What's in it for me?' is the usual motivator, no matter what 'color' personality they may be.  I agree with Mary that maybe moods change, also.

Hey Mary, thanks for introducing me to Frank!  As far as not knowing how your letters are being received, if you use an autoresponder for your follow up mailings you'll be able to see the unsubscribes  :-)

Thanks again for the helpful article, Frank!