The Tribune

By D'ARCY RAHMING

WHEN e-mail was first introduced it was traumatic for many. I remember in 1996, when I was working for Allstate Insurance in Chicago, how the managers complained that now they were receiving information at the same time as their subordinates. This took away a lot of their power, which lay in information distribution. As we all know, it eventually took away a lot of their jobs.

At the same time, a personal revolution in e-mail was taking place. Marketers soon realised that e-mail marketing was free, and you could send as much information as you wanted as many times as you wanted to. Everyone loved to get these e-mails. They opened and read every one of them, just like people do with phone text messages nowadays. That was a golden period for advertisers, some of whom made millions sending unwanted e-mails (spamming) knowing that everyone would open them. In the US, laws were eventually written against spamming. The Bahanas has not caught up with that as yet.

Today, because of these spammers, I would guess that two out of every 1,000 people are opening these unwanted e-mails. Notwithstanding that, e-mail marketing is still a great way to reach a person and deliver quality information to them. However, if they have not asked you to send the e-mail, they are very unlikely to open it. If one out of every five persons opens your e-mail, even after they have asked for it to be sent to them, you are doing very well. This statistic is called the open rate.

So how do you get people to open your e-mails? Well, first of all, you have to get their permission to send them something. This is normally done with a free report or some type of contest information where they can win something. The rules for the free report are simple. If the information is not valuable enough to make the person more money, save the person money or contain content that they would pay for, then they are less likely to leave their name and e-mail information for you to be able to contact them.

Every day I receive dozens of e-mails. So the first thing I do is look at the sender and the subject matter, tag them and delete the majority of them. Some e-mails I do not open and leave for reference later on. In truth, I rarely get back to them. I suspect that my behaviour is similar to that of many persons. Bottom line: Send something of true value that has been requested, and more of your e-mails will get opened.

NB: D'Arcy Rahming holds a Masters of Management from the J. L. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. A lecturer at the College of the Bahamas, Mr Rahming has clients in general insurance, retail, the health and medical fields, sports federations and financial services. To receive his marketing newsletter FREE go to http://DArcyRahming.com or contact him directly at darcyrahmingsr@gmail.com