How to create effective promotional emails (a.k.a. 'e-flyers')

Excerpted from ConvUrgency.com's Smart Email Marketing Guide

So if I refer to newsletters as the bread and butter of email marketing, I would have to call e-flyers the meat and potatoes. These are where the most return is to be seen. These are the emails that you send out regularly, purely for the purpose of selling product, generally with some discount. They can be tracked directly through to a conversion/purchase, and can therefore receive an exact measure of return on investment, and even average profit per email.

Of all emails, these are the one where you’ll want most to adhere to good opt-in practices. This is because people are far more likely to report a promotional email as spam if they don’t want it. Therefore, assuming you’ve developed a list of opt-in subscribers to promote to, how can you create the most successful promotional emails?

I know that I’ve already explained the danger of including a large amount of images in your email, due to image blocking issues. However, with these emails only, they tend to be more graphically heavy, and I absolutely agree that they should. This is for the simple reason that people like to see product shots, these are great motivators to click and buy. With most e-flyers I receive, I don’t even read the text, price, or discounts. I simply scan the pictures, and if I see something I like or need, I look to see the price promotion.

No doubt you can see the wisdom in creating image-laden promotional emails. Therefore, you’ll need to address the image blocking issue. Of course, if you have great specials, your customers love you and just can’t wait for your next e-flyer, well then no doubt they’ll add you to their safe senders list. But the best way to get these and all the rest of your subscribers to safe-list you is to prompt them to. Use the little ‘add to safe senders list’ phrase at the top of your template. Not only are you increasing your chance of conversion by people seeing the images, but you’re also going to get truer open rates, as even scanning the email will count as an open.

Promotional email lists are difficult in that they have a larger churn ratio. People will quickly unsubscribe for a multitude of reasons, so it’s in your best interests to continue to provide value beyond the product discounts. For example, one computer product vendor allows subscribers to click and receive a bonus points for every one of the e-flyers they open. These points slowly add up, and can be redeemed for free gadgets. I can personally attest to the effectiveness of this little bonus. At a time when I was cutting down on my subscriptions, I unsubscribed from most computer hardware vendors’ emails; because once I had my office equipment I wouldn’t be buying regularly enough to justify numerous weekly emails. However, I kept my subscription to this one email, purely for the points. The result has been that I’ve made most of my computer-related purchases through this company, and I’ve happily redeemed my points each time!

So be creative, think of ways to keep your users engaged. This will ensure higher retention rates on your subscriber list, and therefore a higher residual income from promotional email marketing.

One long-term tip I can give you is to segment your list based on past activity, and personalize your promotional emails based on expressed product interests. Amazon does this very well. If you buy a book, they’ll make the assumption that you’re interested in that subject, and regularly promote deals on related products. While this can clearly provide a higher return, it also takes a far more complex infrastructure. So plan well!

Excerpted from ConvUrgency.com's Smart Email Marketing Guide