While social media gets much of the attention of the media, email marketing remains one of the most effective ways to engage your customer base. It has low costs and high ROI when done correctly, and offers one of the best opportunities to build a relationship.Unfortunately, when many business owners think of email marketing, they immediately think of blasting spam and the multitudes of marketing messages clogging our inbox. When done correctly, email marketing instead becomes part of a larger effort to engage and build a relationship with a customer while moving them through the sales process. Regular communication from you keeps you relevant and part of the conversation.
Building Your List
Customers will often not buy at first contact, so it becomes crucial to capture their contact information and their permission for you to keep in touch. Often the customer will need an incentive to give up their email address, and this can be anything that engages, informs, or entertains (and preferably furthers your sale).Also, with such a proliferation of spam, you’re going to want to follow all applicable regulations for collecting emails, and follow best practices such as getting a double opt-in (the customer signs up, but then must click a link in a confirmation email to complete the opt-in).
Keys for Optimising Your Email Campaigns
• Don’t attempt to personalize emails unless you’re confident in your data. You can still write a very conversational email without addressing a name.
• Use split testing to test subject lines and content.
• Every email needs a call to action, usually in link form. Use multiple links in different locations (like top, medium, bottom, and P.S.), and use different URLs so you can track which works best.
• Send emails in multi-part format (with a text version and an HTML version). HTML can be preferable for display and tracking purposes, but many recipients will have their email client set to display text or strip images from email. For these subscribers you want to have the text version available.
• Test your emails in multiple clients to see how they render. Do they look as intended? It’s helpful to have popular free email accounts for this purpose, as well as a traditional email tools.
• Troubleshoot any copy which may set off spam filters and make modifications as necessary.
• Try segmenting your email list by demographic or customer type to provide a more targeted experience.
• De-duplicate your list regularly to prevent multiple emails to the same subscriber, which can result in reports of spam.
• Using multi-step email marketing campaigns, based on timing or triggers, can be a great way to maintain consistent contact. You can break up a piece of content and deliver it over multiple emails, and can even include sales offers (though don’t try to sell in every email).
If you wish to discuss the success of Email marketing further contact: Berry Burgess at Armadillo Creative on 0191 257 8380 or visit www.armadillo-creative.com
