But I have found that even more important than the actual tools chosen – the key to successful email marketing lies in two things:

1 – Limiting the content you are communicating. People typically do not want to read a novel (or even a page of a novel!), so presenting a limited number of interesting topics, with the key information presented in bullet points or other read-at-a-glance formats has been the most effective for us. Readers tend to read headlines, bullet points, and lists more than great big paragraphs of content.

2 – Presenting relevant, useful information as opposed to just advertising. Our email campaigns are typically to generate sales from our website. The times when we send a “reminder to order” or an otherwise uninformative email just to boost sales are the emails that we experience the most opt-outs. As opposed to true announcements, explanation of features, roll-outs, etc. that get lots of reads and plenty of click-thrus.

There is no doubt that our sales are boosted exponentially on days that an email campaign goes out. A huge ROI for a $25/mo subscription.

On a side note, I’m from Toronto and LOVE Algonquin. Here’s proof: http://snurl.com/1za5n

Keep up the great work.
Dave