People are so inundated with information everyday, it's hard to get their attention. Consider how many emails you receive that you don't read. These strategies will help prevent your email marketing from falling victim to the delete key.
At the top of the list is having permission to send email marketing to a recipient. There are a variety of ways to build an email list. In the email marketing we do for our business, the email service offers tips on growing your email list. One idea is at your store, or when you meet people you would like to add to your list, simply ask them if it's okay to send them your email marketing.
Be familiar with the people on your list. This gives you the opportunity to segment your list by interest or provide information that you know will be of interest to everyone on your list. Requesting replies to your email also helps gauge what gets the attention of your recipients. Monitor your in box for feed back and reply to comments and questions.
Keep your email marketing personal by using the recipients' names. It makes bulk email seem more personal. The email marketing service we use does this for us.
Email marketing may not be as effective during holiday seasons. People are distracted with other activities. If you have a retail business and your recipients have opted to receive your emails, then shopping seasons are prime emailing marketing times for you. Business to business service organizations may want to think about sending their email marketing early in the week for at work consumption. Business to consumer business may want to email market closer to the weekend when more people have free time to take advantage of email offers.
Email subject lines should state an immediate benefit to the recipient. Mention a discount or ask an interesting question. It's a good idea to avoid $ and ! and "free" as these may trigger spam filters. Our email subject line is the title of our newsletter, which includes our business name.
If you include a call to action, make it clear and easy to follow through. If you want recipients to print a coupon, test it to make sure it works. If you want them to click through to your website, make sure the link works. If you want them to do something specific when they land on your website, make it easy to find and complete.
The email service we use provides us with a variety of statistics regarding our email newsletter. We can learn who opened the newsletter and how many times. Who opted in or out, who clicked through and more. This is usefull information for the purpose of personal follow up and other business purposes.
Email marketing is inexpensive but has significant impact. Our average open rate has been around 30%. If you compare that with direct mail, which is ususally around 2% to 5% and much more expensive, you can see why we find email marketing appealing. The Chamber has a very nice email newsletter and is a good example of how email marketing can be done well. If you would like to see our Boulevard Financial newsletter, please send me an email at boulevardfinancial@comcast.net.
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