Email marketing has be around as long as the Web. Although people rely heavily on filters to block incoming spam, proper email marketing can help both businesses and their customers. Read this article to learn how to develop a successful email marketing campaign.
An excellent tip for email marketing is to follow up with some type of update on your products or services that you are providing. For example, you could add a “buy now” feature onto your email. The ending of your email could inform your readers to keep in mind the up-sell as well.
Always seek permission before sending marketing emails to potential customers. Sending unsolicited emails will quickly have you labeled a spammer. Getting permission to send your messages doesn’t have to be hard; offer something valuable to your customers in exchange for the ability to email them, such as a discount, coupon, or other sign-up incentive.
Provide subscribers with a way out. Place an “unsubscribe” link in your emails or on your website to allow them to remove themselves from your list. You should also set up your list to cull itself by removing subscribers after a particular number of messages prompt no response or action from the recipient. This prevents your emails from becoming annoying to disinterested subscribers and preserves your image.
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 “$$$.”
Data mine your email list and bucket your audience into various segments based off of any profiling data you have. This will allow you to be more strategic with your messaging and effectively increase your chances of higher open and click through rates. Even if you don’t have profiling, look to geo-targeting. Various regions respond differently to different types of messaging.
Keep in mind that major holidays are not the best time to send out important emails. Because people are not checking email as frequently around these times, your email is more likely to be ignored. There are times, however, when this may not be true. For example, an email about your Black Friday deals.
It is important that your friendly form line is one that your subscribers will recognize. For example, do not have the CEO of your company sending the emails. The reader may not know who it is from and just delete the email. In the subject line, put your business’s name.
For your email marketing campaigns to be truly effective, every message needs a clear call to action. For example, if you are promoting a new product then you should encourage customers to go directly to that product’s page. On the other hand, if you are promoting a new sale then you should clearly explain how customers can take advantage of that sale.
You should send your emails as a plain text every once in a while instead of always sending them in HTML format. This gives things a more personal touch and helps the subscriber feel that you are trying to connect. Do not use it too much though because then you may be seen as being too unprofessional.
Do not restrict yourself just to email marketing. As you identify your core clientele that trusts you, see if you can get phone numbers and physical addresses. Build on your relationships by expanding your communications with your loyal core base by contacting them through these mediums as well as email.
Be sure that every email address you have is valid. It would be a waste of time to have to find the correct email address and resend your emails. Don’t waste the time!
If you are going to incorporate graphics into your e-mails, you should make certain that the e-mails are still readable if the recipient chooses not to display those graphics. A great way to do this is to utilize ALT tags so that replacement text will be displayed when the images cannot be displayed. It might also be a good idea to place the bulk of your images near the bottom of the e-mail.
Keep all of your branding in your email consistent with your business. Don’t make your email appear as though it belongs to another business. Try to stick with your usual colors, voice, and fonts so that the readers can recognize that the email is from you and so they will read it.
If you are sending out good emails, your customers will read them out of interest and not realize you are selling something. Subscribers actually enjoy reading messages which provide them with a useful service or a little entertainment. This will increase your brand recognition in a positive manner. This means that you will have loyal customers who are glad to spend money on the products and services that you provide. Use what you’ve learned from the article above, and start enjoying success with email marketing.