Sending bulk email, mass email, email newsletters

Getting the balance right is crucial in email marketing. If you have collected a good amount of emails and are just about to release a new product you have the powerful opportunity to send a mass email out to all those users. However doing it wrong could lead to devastating consequences.

Sending out bulk email can be a huge benefit to keep customers interested in returning to your website but it's also very easy to annoy or spam your customers which will get you a very bad name. So here are our tips to creating a good newsletter campaign.

Where is this newsletter coming from?

Make sure the recipient of your newsletter can easily determine who has sent the email. They may have forgotten who you are and what you do so sometimes a logo is not enough. Add a small blurb of text that explains what your website or company is.

How often should I send out bulk emails

Getting the timing right can be a difficult task. A lot of successful email marketers like to do weekly or monthly newsletters. This is only successful if each newsletter has new and interesting content. Make sure the recipient is interested in what you will be sending to them or else they may unsubscribe or report you as spam. It''s also a wise choice to make sure the customer know what they are signing up for in the first place.

Get users to opt in for bulk email

When collecting the email address of a user be sure to explain why you are collecting it and what you will do with that email address. So if you plan on sending out weekly newsletters to the user be sure to state that at the registration page. This is called opt in and means that you will have very little chance of the user feeling like you are spamming them.

Your bulk email design

Getting the design right is another crucial point. If you plan on sending out newsletters often then try to use a similar newsletter template. You could make the design reflect your actual website to help the recipients relate the email to your website. Don't over do it. Heavy graphics don't play well with a lot of email readers.

Designing HTML email is a difficult task. It's not like designing a standard HTML page as their are different email rendering engines. Outlook will sometimes display an email differently to hotmail or gmail. This is a whole topic in its self which we will not be going into here.

Beat the spam filters

Beating the spam filters can be a daunting task. Spam filters pick up on spammy words, pharses and the amount of links in the email. Keep words like "FREE", "WIN" and "CHEAP" out of the subject line and try to keep them to a minimum in the body of the email. It is best to personalise the email such as saying "hi Steve". You can use Ripe tags inside the email to do this. Entering "Hi {{NAME}} will be replaced with "Hi" and then the users first name.

Test your bulk emails first

Be sure to test your newsletters first. Do it multiple times and open the email with different email renderers such as microsoft outlook, hotmail, gmail and even on mobile phones. Then when you are completely 100% sure do another test just to be doubly sure. Theres nothing wrong with sending out a bulk email campaign to everyone and finding out you made a mistake. It's often good practice to send out your tests to an inner circle of colleges or friends for testing feedback.

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