Email marketing is not simply a matter of sending out emails to customers and potential customers. You need to know about how it works, what your customers want from you and how to make your email marketing work for you, your customers and your business. Use the tips from this article to develop an email marketing campaign that will give everyone what they want.
To make sure your emails don’t turn people off, always seek permission before sending them out. Include a subscription button on your site, and encourage regular customers to have their friends sign up as well. If you’d like to give people some extra encouragement to subscribe, you could feature subscriber only deals.
Get your audience to help you expand. When you have acquired a small group of viewers, think of innovative ways to get them to spread the word to their friends. Include a link to subscribe at the top of your emails so that anyone who receives a copy that has been forwarded from a friend can sign up as well. By doing this, your viewer base will grow.
Ask your customers for feedback on your emails. Since your customers are the most important part of your campaign, it is important to know if they are pleased with the emails they receive from you. You could ask them to fill out a short survey with a few questions on what they like and what they dislike.
When you ask people to opt-in, let them know what to expect. Tell them what you will be sending and how often you will send it. People will be more likely to sign up if they know that you are not going to flood their inboxes with wordy emails that they have no intention of reading.
Treat each reader like a relationship. Ask in the first email for permission to send more. In the second email, tell them what discounts, products and services they can expect in future emails. In the third email and after, follow through with the content you promised to provide them with.
When you are having your customers provide their email address to you during the sign-up process. Make sure that you have the clear disclaimer visible that you will be undertaking email marketing campaigns. Try to give the consumer an indication of how often you intend to make use of their addresses so that they are not unaware.
Make your emails content rich. Put some helpful information in emails and don’t just put in information related to sales. Your subscribers should have access to exclusive content before everyone else. Also try including special offers on products and services. Sending holiday messages or birthday greetings will demonstrate your interest aside from business purchases.
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.
Give customers the choice of getting a plain text version of your email marketing materials or a rich text version. Customers can choose the option they prefer when they sign up for your newsletter. Plain text versions don’t include graphics, so customers with slower connections or overactive spam filters might appreciate this option.
The best way to avoid sending emails that are spammy is by studying spam emails firsthand. Get a free email address, post your new email address in various places on the Internet, and it won’t be long before your inbox is jammed with spam. Take a look at those emails and learn what you don’t want yours to look like. If you see any similarities, adjust your email marketing campaign. Avoiding tactics that spammers use will increase your reputation and your credibility.
You must be persistent with your email marketing strategy. While you must be persistent, it needs to be used with the proper consumers or it won’t help your business. Continuing to target the wrong group of potential clients simply creates ill will and is not a good use of resources.
Focus on a single message per email you send out. Don’t try to cram a whole bunch of topics into a single email.Too much information can lead to the recipient not reading over everything carefully and possibly just tossing the message. Have an informative4 subject line and the gist of your topic in the email to get them to read it.
Playing with fonts is fun, and you may be tempted to spice up your emails with exotic fonts. Resist that temptation! Fonts may display differently, or even be replaced by defaults, on someone else’s computer. Even if an odd font does display correctly, there is no guarantee that your recipient will appreciate it the same way you do. To avoid any font-based mishaps, stick with fonts that are widespread, easy to read, and understated.
Right on the subscription form, tell your new subscribers about the emails they can expect you to send them. Let them know exactly the types of emails they will receive and how often they will receive them. This will allow new subscribers to avoid being surprised by the emails you send out.
Your email messages must be attention-grabbing in order to be successful. You may have to make several attempts before finding success. If something is not working for you, try a different approach. Test out new techniques continuously so you can stay on top of marketing.
As noted above, email marketing is not as simple as just sending out emails to customers and potential customers. Your content and strategy makes all the difference in whether you email marketing will be a success for whether it will just be another piece of overlooked spam. Use the techniques and the information from the above article to help you launch and email campaign that you and your customers will love.
