Gone are the days when business had to send out flyers to mass markets or have them put on cars in parking lots and hope for the best. Email marketing helps businesses reach their established customers as well as those who would genuinely be interested in their products. This article can help you develop an email marketing campaign that will help you reach your target.
Always get permission! Unsolicited email is not welcome, and in certain cases, can get your ISP blocked. When contacting someone, always include a newsletter or an offer – this way the customer has the chance to agree to receive your messages. The last thing you want is to be branded a spammer.
Minimize traditional email marketing activities during the holidays. Customers are preoccupied with family and friends, and are less likely to be paying attention to business email. Your odds of ending up in the spam box are considerably higher, which could have longer term implications for your bottom line. The major exception to this would be a business directly related to the holiday activities. Otherwise, give yourself a break and enjoy some downtime yourself. Business will be back on track in a day or two.
Be persistent in your attempts to reach customers. You don’t have to send emails daily, but keep in mind that you may not capture a customer’s attention, or business, until he or she has been exposed to your brand or products several times. Touch base often, but not so frequently that it seems too annoying.
If you buy a list of emails to send to, check and make sure it is up to date. Sometimes lists for sail might match your target demographics but be woefully out of date. The number of addresses now defunct can be as high as 25% of the overall list.
Do not use dollar signs in either the subject or the body of your emails, unless you are using just one to denote a specific amount of currency. This will strike many recipients as being spam my behavior, and many spam filters will automatically trash emails that include character strings like “$$$.”
You should have people who would like to receive your emails double opt-in. While it may seem cumbersome, it solidifies their interest in your emails, and will prevent any issues with spam issues and complaints.
While you want to use your email marketing to improve your sales. The only way to get potential customers to read your emails is to convince them that they have value. To do this, your emails should always contain concrete, useful information and relevant links, and not just generic sales fluff.
Get creative with your email designs to find out what works best. Send out a few emails with content and links that differ in their fonts and text color. Play around with image positioning, including buttons and logos. After you’ve sent the emails, find out which ones had the best click-thru rates. Stick with those for the time being, but change it up on occasion to see if you can find a method that works even better. More click-thru rates equate to more sales.
In order to banish all concerns about spam and ensure that no one on your subscriber list is there by mistake, consider employing a double opt-in strategy. Your first message should require some sort of additional action, like replying or clicking on a link, to make certain that the reader wants to receive further emails.
It is vital that you develop brand recognition, even in the emails you send. Because this is so true, you need to set aside the time and money to develop an email template that features several key elements, including the company logo, company colors, and any other elements that make it consistent with the rest of your marketing. This fosters brand recognition among your subscriber base.
You should focus your email marketing efforts on your most promising customers. While you need to be persistent, it must be with the right customers or else it is not going to make that much of a difference. If your messages are not properly targeted, your customer base cannot grow.
Have a strong call to action in your email marketing campaign and position it to be seen. You shouldn’t make it difficult for your email readers to know exactly what you want from them. If it’s too hard to figure out, then your email will most likely be quickly deleted. Instead, offer a clear call to action and deliver it in a way that can’t be missed.
Be sure there’s an exit option for people who don’t want to subscribe any longer. It’s costing you money to send those emails, and sending them to people who don’t want them is money poorly spent. Bad publicity and people seeing you as a hostile spammer can not only negatively influence your business, but may result in being blocked and blacklisted online.
Allow for conversation through your email marketing message campaign. Ask questions of your subscribers, or posit thought provoking queries. The responses will make your readers feel like they are part of a relationship instead of marketing targets. The responses you get will help you know where you are going right, and you might discover useful information about your base.
As previously noted, flyers that are posted on cars and sent to everyone on a mailing list were notoriously expensive, time-consuming and mostly ineffective. Email marketing has come along and allows you to send market your business in a much more effective manner at a fraction of the cost and with a greater success rate. Use the information in this article to help you create a successful email marketing campaign.
