Everyone knows that in order to have a successful business, it’s important to employ good marketing strategies. While there are many ways to market your products, email marketing is a great way to utilize the internet and reach an unlimited target market. Read on to discover ways to use email marketing in your business.
Always get permission! Unsolicited email is not welcome, and in certain cases, can get your ISP blocked. When contacting someone, always include a newsletter or an offer – this way the customer has the chance to agree to receive your messages. The last thing you want is to be branded a spammer.
If you want your email marketing messages to be successful, make sure you have permission to send them. If you do not have permission from your recipients, the potential consequences can range from being added to spam filters all the way up to getting blacklisted by Internet service providers themselves.
To get people to opt-in and give permission for you to send email marketing messages to them, offer an incentive. Offer a discount or a coupon on one of your products or services. Include a whitepaper or newsletter about your niche or market. Give your prospect something in return for access to their inbox.
Make sure that you get permission from customers or potential customers before sending out your emails. If people do not want to get emails from you, they could mark your emails as spam or even ignore you altogether. There is even a chance that your email service could take you out of their system.
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 “$$$.”
While you want to use your email marketing to improve your sales. The only way to get potential customers to read your emails is to convince them that they have value. To do this, your emails should always contain concrete, useful information and relevant links, and not just generic sales fluff.
Consider using text emails instead of graphically intense HTML emails for your campaign. You may be thinking that the graphics will engage your reader more, but it’s usually not the case. Many people today have trained themselves to delete emails with lots of imagery, assuming they are spam. As well, those images often trigger spam filters, meaning your message is never received by some people on your email list!
Email marketing marches on, and the good old newsletter has become largely obsolete. Instead of sending around a general circular for all of your subscribers, expend the effort to tailor emails to the interests of their particular recipients. There are many robust programs and services that can help you do this automatically.
Pay attention to the demographics within your subscriber base. See what content and links intrigued a particular segment of your audience, and then follow up with a new email to that subgroup. The boost in your response rate from peeling away the top layer will really surprise you, but in a delightful way.
During the opt-in process, ask for your customers’ names, or at least their first names. This will allow you to include their name in your marketing emails, giving the mailings a personal, friendly touch. This will help your emails stand out from those that seem anonymous and cold.
When creating text for your email marketing campaign, make sure you use fonts that reflect the tone of what your email is trying to convey to the customer. This is important in providing the right emphasis, and it conveys the message clearly to the customer. This will work wonders in keeping the reader intrigued.
Offer incentives. People might be hesitant to give their consent to receive e-mails. Try offering some sort of incentive as a bonus for receiving e-mails from you. Offer coupons or exclusive promo codes. Make sure that there is content in these e-mails that they will find both worthwhile and useful.
Make certain that the ‘from’ field of your e-mails displays your name or your business in a manner that is easily recognizable. Many people determine whether they are going to read an e-mail based on the ‘from’ field. A lot of people are also wary of opening e-mails that are sent from places that they do not readily recognize due to the fact that e-mails can contain viruses.
Do not depend on images too much. Images can enhance the look of an email; however, the information in your message should be readable, even if the images are not displayed. Many clients will disable images from new email senders for security reasons. You need to ensure that your message will come across clearly whether they see the images or not.
Create an unsubscribe link that works immediately. If a customer unsubscribes from your list, that should be the last mailing they receive from you. In today’s computerized world, there’s no excuse for unscriptions not to be immediate. Customers who continue to receive mailings after they unsubscribe are likely to treat those emails as spam, and respond accordingly.
It is important to tie your email marketing efforts together with whatever other marketing strategies you employ. Email recipients may also be interested in special offers delivered by post, mobile marketing, or social-networking tie-ins. You should introduce this subject with delicacy. It is best to proceed only after an email subscriber has demonstrated some interest and loyalty.
As you can see, email marketing can be an effective marketing method for any business when used properly. By utilizing the internet, you are reaching countless potential customers outside of your local area. Use the tips above to kick-start your email marketing campaign and begin turning a profit in your business.
