When using email marketing to promote a product, brand or service, you have the ability to reach people right in their inboxes and thus to have a very personal and profound impact. The statistics clearly show that this is a highly effective way to promote a book and to potentially make a lot of money but you know what they say: with great power comes great responsibility.
Read on then and we’ll look at some ‘best practices’ for author email marketing that will help you avoid any awkward faux pas. Not only will this help you to avoid frustrating your audience but it will also help you to get more clicks and conversions…
Two a Week is Enough
You may choose to send a higher volume of emails to build anticipation for a new book or promotion. The rest of the time though, try to avoid sending more than 2 emails a week. Otherwise you’ll just frustrate your audience and they’ll quickly become sick of your messages.
Avoid ALL CAPS
All caps is annoying wherever it’s located but in your inbox it’s particularly abrasive and rude. Don’t do it!
Use Re: With Caution…
You might have heard others promote using ‘Re:’ in the subject header as a great way to draw attention to your e-mails. It’s also manipulative and amounts to tricking your readers. I wouldn’t recommend this method.
Make Unsubscribing Easy
No matter what email marketing software you use you need to make sure that unsubscribing is easy and obvious. This is key – as otherwise you can do serious damage to your author brand.
Deliver Value
Whether or not your e-mails are welcome in someone’s inbox or frustrating will ultimately depend on whether or not you provide value. As long as you offer value, people will have a good reason to read what you’re sending them and they’ll be glad for it. Consistently do this and try not to send lots of messages that are just self-promoting..
Ultimately, you are a guest in your subscribers’ homes. Act that way and treat them with respect and gratitude – it will ultimately be better for you and future books sales in the long run.
