Tips to Improve E-mail Effectiveness - with Melissa Mackey (5:43) Dr. Ralph F. Wilson , Web Marketing Today - Aug 9, 2011

In this video interview, Internet marketing expert Melissa Mackey discusses various ways to increase the value of e-mail marketing to your business.

1. Make your e-mail sign-up or opt-in form prominent on your website, in social media -- and on your store check-out counter (if you have one). Put your form on every page, if you can. While double opt-in lists are good if you need an especially clean list, Mackey believes single opt-in works well for most businesses.

2. Develop content that your readers want to read. It shouldn't be just about your business, but focused on their interests. Then promote your products and services after they find their interests spoken to.

3. E-mail frequency probably should be more more often than you think. For example, if you think your readers want to hear from you weekly, test twice weekly. You may get a better response. You should e-mail at least monthly to keep your business in the readers' consciousness. Otherwise, they may not remember who you are.

4. Test everything you can to optimize effectiveness. You can test frequency, subject line, content, positioning of design elements, calls-to-action -- anything you can test on webpages. Unfortunately, most small business e-mail programs don't have split-testing built-in. But it may be worth getting a more capable e-mail program for the sales lift you'll get from testing.

Melissa Mackey is Search Supervisor at gyro, the largest independent B2B agency in the world. She also blogs at Searching Beyond the Paid, where she writes on the topics of pay-per-click marketing and other aspects of search engine marketing. This interview was recorded at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in Chicago in October 2010.