By the second week of January a lot of resolutions have been made, and quite a few have already been broken or forgotten. I have a few email resolutions that will be easy for you to make and keep this year and beyond. Try a few of these tactics and see how they can impact your results:

Start at the top. Add preheader text to your email messages. The preheader is that tiny line of text at the top of your message and serves as a secondary subject line. It can be  especially helpful for readers viewing messages on mobile devices on whether to open your message, or not.

Stick to the Subject. It may not seem that important but over 50% of your recipients base the decision on opening your message based on the subject line alone! So take some time and ensure your subject line really hooks your reader and engages them from the get-go.

Link it Up. Include links in your messages so your recipients have the ability to learn more. You can keep your email marketing message short and sweet then link to more content on your website. Also, test your links prior to sending to avoid embarrassing broken ones in your messages after they’ve been sent.

Take Action with Buttons. I always hear my director of retention & conversion marketing talking to her team about the call-to-action. Simply put, tell your reader what you want them to do. And, her team tested using text links vs call-to-action buttons in their messages and found they increased their clicks when using the buttons! You can try this in your own messages.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words. Using images in your messages is a great way to break up your copy and add visual interest to your messages at the same time. A few things you need to keep in mind are to use a good balance of images and text, use alt text so that recipients who have email readers that don’t display images will be compelled to enable them and lastly, link your images. Your recipients expect them to be linked so give ’em what they want.

Testing, Testing 1-2-3. If you’re not testing you’re losing out on valuable information about your recipients and what they want. The most simple elements to test are your subject line, layout and copy.

Typos are a Buzz Kill. Yes, typos happen to the best of us, but with some dedicated proofing and fresh eyes, you can minimize their occurrence and avoid the dreaded “Doh!” moment when you realize your error, or worse when one of your recipients tells you about it.

Make your emails more social. You can expand the reach of your messages with a single click and share them on Facebook and Twitter. When you join forces with email and social media each one will have more impact.

So there are a few simple resolutions you can try in 2011. Let me know what else you are doing to make your marketing more successful this year!

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