All modern databases are granular in structure and allow you to export data based on standard fields such as location, gender, customer type, etc. All of which are useful when building your selections for email campaigns. Why not go that one step further and create new fields that will enable you to target your prospects and customers more precisely? Depending on your business activity, access to data such as product interest, annual income and socio-economic group, allow you create campaigns which are built with specific recipient characteristics in mind. This results in better open rates, responses and ROI per campaign.

Continuously emailing contacts who never open your emails wastes money and can damage your brand, so it is important that you track who doesn’t open your email messages over a period of time. Whenever you change your email marketing strategy or creative, these contacts should be re-introduced into the send list and be carefully monitored.

It is also recommended that any email addresses that hard bounce are removed from your send lists and CRM systems. A quick telemarketing campaign to email address owners adds value to your database and will improve your email campaign results.

If you send the same email campaigns (creative and copy) to the same group of recipients over and over, and results don’t seem to be improving, then stop! Once you have sent a campaign to the same recipient twice, the chances that they will respond are minimal. Define your strategy, change your messaging and apply fresh design to stimulate your audience. It is also very important that you keep a close eye on your campaign results, so that you can act as soon as performance starts to dip.

Transactional or triggered email messaging is a cheap and automated way to communicate effectively with prospects and customers. They represent a massive selling / cross-selling opportunity and also can be used remind customers of scheduled meetings, birthday messages and much more.

Testing your email marketing is essential, not only does it give you a good idea of what campaign creative, copy and subject line you should be using, but it gives a great indication of how to approach traditional Direct Marketing campaigns and above the line marketing initiatives.

A good way to start with email testing is through using the A/B method, where (for example) two different HTML email designs are used, however, more sophisticated testing is available through dynamic content functionality.

Perform a check-up on your opt-in processes. Review everything from the information you're collecting from your prospects and customer to the confirmation email you are sending. If you're not using strict opt-in policies, do so!

Many people view emails through a preview pane, so make sure your messages contain the main call to action in text and ensure that images are kept to a minimum. Hotmail recently launched a preview pane for their email accounts and it has always been a popular option in Outlook, so when you test your emails ensure you keep this in mind.

If you broadcast your own email campaigns, make sure you set up SPF records, Sender ID records and mail using Domain Keys as soon as possible. Use of these authentication tools will help with your deliverability performance and improve your email marketing results.