Email marketing is tougher than other forms.

There. I’ve said it. Let the dogs of war descend. But keep the fangs in check long enough to listen to the reasons.

1. Once you send it, you can’t take it back.

With rare exceptions, hitting send is an irreversible act, as many can � to his or her chagrin � attest. Online marketing is difficult too, but you can re-write a web-page or replace it on the fly and often many potential customers won’t have seen it before you do. With email marketing you don’t get many second chances.

Conclusion: Get it right the second time. The first time should be to yourself and a small audience of interested, but objective, individuals who don’t know or particularly like you.

2. Email marketing is more personal.

True, spam and even legitimate email marketing rarely targets a specific individual, no matter how throughly dedicated to Behavioral Targeting one may be.

Nevertheless, individuals view their Inboxes as confidential, private and, well, individual. Rightly so. That’s one of the reasons people resent the intrusion of unasked for, undesired solicitations.

Getting someone to open and read an email involves establishing trust. Busy readers need to know very quickly that their time is likely to be well spent.

Conclusion: Before you send an email, decide as best you can whether you’re offering something that your target audience has a good reason to be interested in � by their standards, not necessarily yours.

3. Email marketing results are harder to measure.

Page hits, time on page, other pages visited, and a variety of other metrics allow web site designers to get a good feel for what readers are looking for. Email marketers have fewer clues and they’re harder to track and decipher.

Conclusion: Design your message as best you can so that you know what caused readers to open and clickthrough. Try different subject lines, paragraphs arranged differently, sentences worded differently, varied URLs, etc.

In short, anything and everything that will give you as much data as possible by which to judge not just THAT they read it, but WHY. (You rarely get to know how LONG they spent reading it or how many times. Maybe someday.)

Then use that data.

Email marketing is still among the most effective forms, as measured by ROI. And at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about.

Sometimes common sense bears repeating – and quantifying.

We talked sometime ago about the fact that email campaigns work best when the subject lines are straightforward and descriptive.

The same holds true for the body of the message, and for articles as well. Say what you’re offering in a few simple words of short sentences and small paragraphs.

How short, how small?

I daresay most people have no idea how long the average sentence is. (The previous one, on the lower boundary of the long side, is 13 words. 30 words or more is almost always too long.)

Keep paragraphs to a few lines, typically two to four at most. The third one in this post is 30 words, two sentences. Anything beyond 65 words is a prime candidate for revision.

Microsoft Word or Open Office Writer will both tell you quickly how long sentences and paragraphs are. Just highlight and Hit F12.

(Of course, with practice, you can judge by sight whether a sentence or paragraph is too long.)

And, it should go without saying, just because it’s short doesn’t mean it’s good. But one thing at a time.

Stick to the point and avoid telling the reader about yourself unless it’s relevant to evaluating the product. Some readers are looking for a friend; most are looking for products and services they want.

Just say what you want to say and sign off. Readers may or may not buy your product if you write a good email or article. But your odds are much worse if you don’t.

Now a few words about the rules above.

Great writers break them all the time. There are few great writers.

If, like me, you’re just average it’s best to stick to the rules, unless you have a very good reason to deviate.

To make the rules seem a little less arbitrary (remember English class?), consider the following.

Humans can only take in so much at a scan. Try, without counting, to see how many little lines there are in: |||||||||

(Don’t cheat by breaking it visually into two or more sections. Now you know why spaces and diagonal lines were invented, not to mention numbers.)

Humans are busy. They don’t want to take time to decipher your offer. Most good marketing is offering information in pleasantly digestible form.

Last, if you’re not a good writer – or just don’t have time to write well – hire someone. Someone good. It will more than pay for itself, and very quickly.

Thanks for reading.

Normally biting the hand that feeds you is unwise. But a line has been crossed. Microsoft is now testing contextual ads delivered inside email messages. (Actually Google crossed the line with Gmail quite a while ago. One of the reasons I never use it.)

Far be it from me to complain, since advertising pays me money. But something about the idea of even a very impersonal process displaying ads based on the content of my email strikes me as one step beyond spam.

Even spam is just shotgunned. And, with good filters, I don’t have to look at it. But intruding into my private communications is beyond the pale.

Of course, now that I’ve calmed down a bit, I can look at the bright side.

There are lots of email provider choices, and – so far – Microsoft and Gmail are the only two (I know of) that place content inside email messages.

Since, it’s free, it represents one more way to pay for the system without postage. Others may offer it as an upaid option, or – as many subscription sites do with content – offer ‘no ad’ email for subscribers.

And, best of all from Affiliate Classroom’s perspective, it does provide affiliate marketers another way to create content targeted ads.

Ok, the world isn’t coming to an end. It’s just getting papered over with ads a little more. For performance-based marketing, that’s a good thing.

Hmmm, where’s that beta signup button?