The Constant Contact Guide to Email Marketing

Strike While the Iron Is Hot

When someone is in the process of signing up for your email list, his or her interest and curiosity are at high points. People who are interested in your business will share information, but they aren’t going to give you unlimited time or get too personal. Their interest is also likely to decrease quickly if you wait too long to send your first email, if you send irrelevant information, or if you send too much or too little information in the first few days or weeks following sign-up. This represents two challenges.

The first challenge is to determine what information is valuable to your business, how much information you need to collect in order to communicate effectively, and how much information your new email list subscriber is willing to share at the beginning of a new relationship.

Your other challenge is to begin communicating in highly relevant ways within a short period of time so your new email list subscribers remain interested and start getting used to seeing and interacting with your emails.

The next sections show you which and how much information you should be asking for as a starting point and how to make sure your first few emails are effectively set up to collect additional information and maximize the interest in your business following an initial signup.

VALIDATING EMAIL ADDRESSES

Email addresses can be quite unusual, and as a result they are prone to being mistyped, misspelled, and juxtaposed when someone enters them into ...