Overcoming Inbox Overload By Chuck Mathews | Posted December 19th, 2007

 Inbox Overload. It’s every email marketer’s biggest nightmare — the fear that all your
best email marketing efforts are being ignored by people overwhelmed by
the sheer amount of junk that ends up in their inbox every day. 

Well, I don’t mean to scare you but… you’ve got good reason to be worried!

With so many emails bombarding them on a daily basis, people are
becoming increasingly picky about the ones they choose to read. They’re
quicker to hit the "unsubscribe" button when an email or newsletter
fails to interest them, and they’re spending less time reading the ones
to which they do remain subscribed.

On top of that, in our increasingly Web-savvy world, most people
have at least three different email addresses on the go — and when they
sign up for a newsletter in order to get some exciting freebie (such as
a free report or an eBook), they often arrange to have the newsletters
sent to one of their back-up email addresses, where the newsletters can
languish unseen for weeks or even months on end.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom! Email is still a highly effective marketing tool… if you use it right.

Here are three crucial steps you need to take to ensure YOUR emails
remain on your subscribers’ "must-read" list… instead up ending up in
their junk folder.

1. Make sure your content is VALUABLE

With so many newsletters to choose from these days, people are going
to sign up only for the ones that promise the most useful and/or
entertaining information — and then deliver on that promise.

Don’t think you can just sit back and offer your readers outdated
information or the same useless stuff they can easily find simply by
doing a search on Google. If you want them to open your newsletters,
you have to make it worth their while!

2. Make sure your content is INTERESTING

Your newsletter could contain the formula for how to turn lead into
gold… But if you write in a dry boring tone, and don’t put any effort
into making your content engaging, then people are going to tune out
long before they get to the really good stuff.

3. Make sure your content is WELL-WRITTEN

Another thing that will turn off your potential customers is poor
writing that’s full of spelling mistakes and bad grammar. If your
writing skills are shaky, run your newsletter content through a
spell-check program that looks at grammar, too.

You may even decide to hire a professional writer to develop your
content for you. You can find professional writers who don’t charge an
arm and a leg for their services at online freelance sites such as elance.com.

4. Make sure your content is TIMELY

You want your readers eagerly open your emails as soon as they land in their inbox? Then make sure you include information that’s relevant RIGHT NOW.

Sign for Google Alerts on topics related to your industry, so you
can keep on top of what’s currently hot with your readers — then
address those hot topics in your newsletters. If you want your readers
to see you as the ultimate "go-to" source for the latest tips and info,
then you have to make sure you GIVE them what they want!

… And last, but absolutely not least…

5. Make sure your content GRABS THEIR ATTENTION

Believe it or not, the MOST important part of every email you send is
NOT your headline… or your call to action… or the hottest late-breaking
news you know your readers simply can’t live without.

Nope… The most important part of your email is your SUBJECT LINE.

If that short line of text doesn’t stand out from all the other
subject lines in your subscribers’ inboxes and convince them they need
to open your newsletter RIGHT THIS SECOND to see what it contains, then
chances are good they are going to pass it by in favor of something
more interesting — and possibly never get around to reading it at all.

So make sure you put a lot of careful thought and effort into
crafting a subject line that really ignites your readers’ curiousity…
Because if they don’t bother to open your email, then it doesn’t matter
how great your content is — they’ll probably never read it.

As you can see, these days you definitely have to put a little more
effort into making sure your emails and newsletters remain a useful
communication tool with your target audience. Gone are the days when
people would happily overlook poor writing and shoddy grammar in an
email or newsletter, in order to learn more about a topic that
interests them.

However, make no mistake — that effort is definitely WORTH it! Email
is still by far the most effective way to build a strong relationship
with your customer base… and done right you can use it to easily grow
your profits by 30% or more!

In closing, let’s take a quick look at the opposite side of the coin…

How do YOU feel about the volume of email flooding your inbox these days? Is inbox overload getting you down? How do you separate the quality emails from all the
junk — and how can you apply the lessons learned from your OWN behavior
to your email marketing efforts in order to make them more effective?

Leave us a comment and tell us what you think!