Promotional email 2025

[armdrejoan]

What not to do
In the field of Permission Marketing it is very important what not to do. You must not forget a correct information in which you inform the recipient of the data processing, asking for consent for further communications (here you find an example to copy).

From our experience as readers / recipients of email campaigns, we can draw some conclusions about how your message can be perceived by the recipient.

For example, I recently received this message on my work email:


Yet I didn't find it relevant to me: I'm a designer working in an agency that provides Data for Direct Marketing. Despite good copy, a prominent CTA and a clear and well-designed message, the sender of this email made a couple of important mistakes:

Wrong Target. A good Permission Marketing strategy is based on an offer that is logically connected with commercial compatibility.

What is the connection between the spam database I work for - well known to my sender - and the sale of real estate? I have the feeling that the sender of this email has not studied the site related to the domain of my email.

Inappropriate presentation . This email has the character of a newsletter, that is, something that implies my previous subscription to the service. Yet I have never subscribed and, with this approach, I have no interest in giving it my attention.

The sender instead assumes that the topic interests me and immediately addresses me with a direct CTA. Messages like this end up being marked as spam very quickly.

Due to my professional deformation, I read practically every promotional email I receive, and among these, despite the subject being rather vague and poorly written, I found the one from “Dr. MP”.


Despite the authority that Dr. MP tries to give to her message thanks to her degree and despite the “personalizing” strategy that gives a name to the sender, even in this case the message will most likely end up being trashed by the recipient.

Dr. MP makes a first mistake with a message that is too vague: she introduces herself as a business consultant, but does not provide me with any data to delve deeper, neither a website nor a Linkedin profile. If I had the opportunity to learn more about her business and her current clients, perhaps the message would gain more credibility.

The opening of the message tells me that “the campaign is for me”. A simplistic statement, since we don’t know each other, and that makes me walk away without my interest being captured by what follows. The conclusion of the message also alerts me, promising me excellent results. It has all the appearance of a promise created ad hoc to attract me with deception.

I continue reading anyway and I notice that I am asked for a telephone contact as if we were in a final phase of the agreement. Better to ask politely if the recipient is interested in learning more, otherwise we are rushing!

Finally, regarding the price, it is better to remember that in a Permission Marketing campaign it is not allowed to talk about prices. This will be a topic of further investigation by the recipient, if he/she shows interest.

Unfortunately, Dr. MP didn't manage to catch my attention either! I closed her email without any reason of curiosity and the message ended up with all the others guilty of the same errors.