Whether you are an experienced ezine/newsletter editor or
a newbie trying to build a mailing list, there is one
thing you all must strive for. That one thing is a
professional looking end product.
How many emails have you received that have so many
spelling errors in them that you simply can't take them
seriously and delete the email.
How about the email that starts off Ok but you get to the
third line and it runs on to the right, seemingly to
infinity. BOOM...
Delete It
Even if you are care full about both of the above, you
still have to watch out for the dreaded SPAM filters.
Almost every email client has them and if you send an
email with one of thier filtered words, BAM...
there goes your email, right into the Bulk or Junk
folder, never to be read by anyone. Even if they have
subscribed to your list, unless they have whitelisted
your "from" address you can still wind up in the junkpile.
OK, you started out wanting to send a simple email to
your list about a new offer and now it would seem that it
will take over an hour just to be sure you don't look
like an illiterate or have your email wind up in the junk
folder.
This is where your three best friends come to the rescue.
They are Spellcheck, SpamCheck and Formatit
I publish several newsletter and ezines, plus a few
thousand mailing lists, (yes, I said a few thousand) and
about 98% of my mailings get through to the recipients,
have correct spelling and they are formatted to the readers
email box.
After I write anything I plan to send by email I use three
simple, free online tools to insure this and it takes me
no more than than five minutes.
Here is how I accomplish this.
I write my email or article, such as this one, in notepad
and the first place I go is http://www.spellcheck.net/
Once there, I copy and paste my entire email into their
online spellchecker and I immediately get back a report
not only showing me the misspelled words but offering
suggestions for changes. Keep in mind that this program
doesn't recognize certain words such as email, ezines,
spam, etc. But as long as you know this and ignore these
suggestions you will be OK.
I make the required changes using their online tool and,
voila!, my email has correct spelling and it only took a
couple of minutes, faster once you get used to it.
I can now copy this text back into my notepad and save
the changes.
My next step is to SpamCheck it so that it will get past
the filters. I go to http://spamcheck.sitesell.com/ and
use their online SpamChecker. I use the same procedure as
before. I copy my entire text and paste it into the
online tool and click submit.
This will return a TOTAL SPAM SCORE and explain how it
arrived at that score and what the scores mean. I can
then make any simple changes required and I'm done.
Time, about a minute and a half.
OK, I now have an email with correct spelling that should
get through all but the most stringent filters. The next
task is to format it to fit my readers email account.
While every email client is different, almost any one of
them should be able to read an email that is formatted to
58 characters per line, including spaces.
That is where my Mailing List Manager seems to work best.
So now I go to http://www.formatit.com/
Basically the same procedure. I copy and paste my entire
email copy into it and enter my desired column width.
Click submit and there you have it. A professional
quality email that is ready to promote my products.
At the last minute, after proofreading this article, I
decided to add one more item. That item is Proofreading.
While I am a big fan of using swipe files for blurbs and
bits of info and copying those into my work, I always
carefully proofread the finished product.
I have been seeing a lot of several common mistakes that I
would like to warn you about.
The most common is people using the word "loose" when
they mean "lose"
Example: "You won't loose money on this deal". While I
try not to lose any money the only money I have that is
loose is my loose change :-)
The next would be the use of "aloud" when they mean
"allowed".
Example: "You aren't aloud to import any email addresses
into this mailer".
Hmmm.. Is it allowed if I do it quietly?
Last, but not least, is the use of "coarse" instead of
"course"
Example: "Click here to get a Free Marketing Coarse".
Sounds pretty rough and hairy to me.
While there is much more to writing professional email
copy, if you use these simple, free tools you will be
well on your way to becoming a successful email
marketer. I hope this information has been helpful to you.
And I didn't even ask you to subscribe to my "Free Coarse"
© 2006 Barry G. Swenson
Source: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Barry G. Swenson
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