You’ve probably never heard the term “email marketing” before, but more than likely you have seen it. It’s everywhere! Your favorite companies have more than likely sent you a message telling you about a product. This is email marketing in its purest form. Does this sound like something you would want to use? Granting that it is, then continue reading.
Develop a consistent format and schedule for your marketing emails. By doing this, your customers will learn when and what to expect. Find a professional template that suits your business and used it every time. Alert your customers to the most relevant information at the beginning of the email.
Target your audience. When you have a substantial number of readers, brainstorm ways to have them sign up friends. At the end of every email, provide a “subscribe” button and a “share” button so readers can pass along your information to friends. This is a great method to use to organically grow your base.
If you want your email marketing messages to get to the right inboxes, target anyone whom you send to. If you already have a core set of fans or followers, offer discounts or promotions to those who get friends to show up. Anyone curious in your products and services probable has known others with similar interests, which mean you, can organically grow your list through existing social relationships.
Before sending out emails to your subscribers, try to let them know what you will be sending them and how often they can expect to hear from you. This way, they know when to expect your email and they can prevent it from getting automatically sent to their spam folder.
The easier it is to subscribe to your email newsletter, the more subscribers you will have. If you have a physical store, ask your customers for their email address when they make a purchase. If you sell on a website, ask them for their address when they are ready to check out.
Remember that the purpose of email marketing is ultimately to sell your products. What you want is for every email to entice the reader to buy. You can do this by writing an email that offers information on a new product, that expounds unexpected benefits of an old product or that promotes a special new promotion.
Do not send any more than a single email message a week. Your readers most likely are busy and probably have many messages daily. If your emails arrive more than once weekly, subscribers are more likely to trash them without ever reading the content that you put so much time into.
Even though you may be tempted, do not fix email addresses that appear misspelled or mistyped. Given the sensitive nature of email, it is important that you do not tinker with what a person typed while opting in. If your attempts to reach a particular address continually bounce, remove it from your database and move on.
Your email marketing efforts will give you the best results when you coordinate them with the rest of your marketing campaign. Do not work against yourself by unnecessarily duplicating your efforts in several different marketing channels. Make sure that your use of email, social media, and traditional venues are all designed to work well together.
Be prepared to respond to emails if your email marketing is done properly. If you take too long to respond, you may miss a bunch of opportunities. If you provide good content that is free, be prepared to get responses to it from your recipients. You must be prepared and available as much as you can.
If you want your marketing emails to be effective, give your customers lots of options. This will allow your subscribers to set the parameters as they see fit, leaving only the information they feel at ease about and receiving only the content that matters most to them. Let your customers control the situation and you will build confidence in the trustworthiness of your brand.
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.
Put real consideration into where you place links in your marketing newsletters. For example, you don’t want to send readers away from your email before you give them their call to action. You also don’t want to put your priority links at the end of an email where they may be overlooked.
After countless times of encountering email marketing, you finally know what it is. Put simply, it’s using the medium of emails to send messages either current customers or future customers for the sole purpose of marketing to them. Now that you know what it is, make use of it in your own emails!