The three factors that invariably increase response rates from direct mail advertising.

Factor 1: Being relevant to the recipient

Consider three possible selections you could  make when choosing a list of businesses to email.  You could select, "All companies with between 20 and 50 staff" or you could select "All accountancy firms" or finally, "all accountancy firms with over 20 staff".

The point about these selections is that they become more specific as they go along and what we find is that the more specific the selection, the more specific you can make your sales pitch in the email - and the more successful it is likely to become.  

Quite obviously, most companies with 20 to 50 staff may have nothing in common with each other - one might make the coating that goes onto CDs, while another could run a fishing fleet.  However once we get to the next group there clearly is a link, and in the final group there is a stronger link - so you can make your email pitch much more specific.  You can talk about the issues facing small firms of accountants in a way that you cannot do when you don't even know what each company does.

So the first factor that increases sales in email marketing is the way the text is written.  If it appears to be well targeted and relevant there is every chance that the recipient will differentiate this email from the millions of spam items that are sent out to every email address that can be found, irrespective of whose address it is.

Factor 2: Giving the recipient a choice

In a recent study by DoubleClick, email users said they were 72% more likely to respond to a business e-mail if its content was based on the interests they had specified. 

That number points out the absolute importance of making recipients feel that they are choosing their own interest groups and have control over which business e-mails they receive.   

Combining factors one and two, Hamilton House wrote to heads and deputy heads in schools and offered them the chance to subscribe to Education Management News - a regular email service.   It was made clear that there were two options were available - one for primary teachers and one for secondary.   By giving teachers this choice, and addressing them as managers of schools in the UK and writing about issues that are relevant to them, HHM increased the response rates significantly when offering them the chance to subscribe.

3.  Encouraging opening of the email

Several studies have shown that the most compelling reason for people to open a business email is the name in the “from” field while other studies have suggested that the “subject” line is also vital.   

The best "from" field names seem to be those that relate to the recipient.  Thus in the example above the emails were sent from Education Management News - which immediately "spoke" to the teachers who received the emails.   

For the "subject" line the words "newsletter" and "update" had a very high uptake - and "free" could be helpful where it related to something that the recepient would believe could be free and was of interest.