5 Tips for Email Marketing
Tagged Under : Email Marketing
One of the most effective pieces of e-marketing is the use of opt-in e-mail lists to retain your customer base. This article focuses on building relationships with existing customers but may also (albeit more loosely) be applied to new customer acquisition.
Imagine you run an e-commerce website of some sort, and have done for a while. Business is steady and you’re getting a relatively good amount of traffic and new customers. But many small business owners will argue that repeat business is the key; retaining your customer base and making people come back time and time again.
So how do we do this? You can have an easy to remember URL, good rankings in the major search engines and even a “bookmark us” link in a prominent place on your home page. Many businesses however, will swear by a strong e-mail marketing campaign to bring back their customers.
Predictably, quite a few smaller businesses get scared by this and will look into outsourcing their campaign to a third-party specialist. This is not always necessary however, and here’s why…
Get a service. Sign up to a pay-as-you-go service such as VerticalResponse. Their website is easy to use with a graphical, linear guide to help you through. You pay per e-mail address and this is one of the most inexpensive providers I have found. You also get a free 30 day trial of their service.
Get a promotion. The backbone of any successful campaign is a solid promotion. If you’re offering 50% off, make it bold and clear. As with any promotion, illustrating it is an art, so if there is anything you may need to outsource when producing your e-shot, it may be the artwork.
Get a call to action. Easier said than done; you need to gain your readers trust and provide them with something that they really want to click on. Make your offers chunky, attractive and enticing. BIG letters work wonders, and try to keep them above the fold (the fold is the area above where the user has to scroll down to see content).
Be careful! Be wary of your e-mail subject line and your message content. Certain words used even in an appropriate context can cause issues with spam filters, meaning your e-mail may never see the light of day!
Get personal. It has been proven many times that e-mails with personalised greetings are received better than those that open with “Dear Customer”. This gives the user a sense of feeling that they’re not just dealing with a heartless corporation and may lead them to continue reading.
E-mail marketing is low-cost, but there is a reason for this. I have found that regardless of how amazing your offer, or how attractive your e-mail may be visually, you do require a LARGE list of subscribers to see a good conversion. E-mail marketing only becomes cost-effective when the cost is relative to the size of your list. This means that you really need at least 500 subscribers, all of which must be up-to-date and opt-in.
Once you cross off the points listed in this article, you will find yourself with an effective campaign that can give your business an unimaginable boost.
