Email marketing is not simply a matter of sending out emails to customers and potential customers. You need to know about how it works, what your customers want from you and how to make your email marketing work for you, your customers and your business. Use the tips from this article to develop an email marketing campaign that will give everyone what they want.
Offer a coupon to customers who sign up for your marketing email list. Put a form on your website where customers can sign up and set the form to email automatically new customers a coupon when they submit the form. This encourages customers to agree to allow you to send them marketing materials so that you won’t be accused of sending out spam.
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.
Make sure that you get permission from customers or potential customers before sending out your emails. If people do not want to get emails from you, they could mark your emails as spam or even ignore you altogether. There is even a chance that your email service could take you out of their system.
Try following up an email to your customers with a notice that tells them not to procrastinate. Insert a suggestion that tells them to purchase now onto the reply. The ending could tell them not to miss this incredible opportunity by waiting. Instead, they should act now to reap the full benefits.
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.
Find out who your competitors are and sign up to their emails. You will be able to see what content, they are sending to their subscribers and figure out what aspects to use and which to stay away from. Just be sure not to steal their content, as this could constitute plagiarism.
To make your emails look as professional as possible, invest a little thought in their design. Use a consistent layout, color scheme, and logo with all of your messages. This gives your subscribers the impression that they are hearing from a trustworthy, authoritative source. They will pay more attention and give your content more credence this way.
Focus on a single message per email you send out. Don’t try to cram a whole bunch of topics into a single email.Too much information can lead to the recipient not reading over everything carefully and possibly just tossing the message. Have an informative4 subject line and the gist of your topic in the email to get them to read it.
One way to keep your email readers engaged is to ask them questions. These should not be rhetorical questions, either. Provide a feedback channel they can use to send you answers. You could ask for direct replies via email, or send your readers to your social networking pages. However you arrange it, asking for two-way communication is a great way to cultivate loyalty in your subscribers.
Use plain text and hyperlinks in your email messages, and save the images and Flash animation for your web page. Many email services now filter out images and animations in the name of consumer safety, meaning that your lists may not even see your carefully-crafted images. Plain text messages are guaranteed to go through intact, and then the images on your website will catch your viewers.
Reflect current festivities with your email marketing messages. Have a theme focusing or referring to love at Valentine’s Day. Be thankful to your subscribers around Thanksgiving. Sending out content in tune with current holidays lets your readers know that your messages are up to date and not just old content being regurgitated by some server.
A great hint for following up with clients is to send a freebie through an email. Include a statement within the message encouraging subscribers to take advantage of the offer. Mention that this offer is limited and that they should act quickly to get their free product or sample.
Your subject line should be limited to 60 characters or less. Email clients usually make messages this length anyways. Others are just unable to display past this length. More importantly, 60 characters usually provides your subscribers with more than enough information to decide whether they want to read your message or delete it.
Let your emails accurately reflect your brand. Though you may feel like email marketing is a bulk and generic product, you should put your all into it. Have the email format showcase your company, and your services, by proudly displaying your business logo with complimentary coloring throughout. Almost nobody uses plain text for marketing these days.
When following up with clients, you might want to consider sending a follow-up email to them that provides a rebate offer. Try attaching a comment onto your email that tells them to call right now. The end of this email can claim to take a position on this offer immediately.
As noted above, email marketing is not as simple as just sending out emails to customers and potential customers. Your content and strategy makes all the difference in whether you email marketing will be a success for whether it will just be another piece of overlooked spam. Use the techniques and the information from the above article to help you launch and email campaign that you and your customers will love.
