Email marketing began almost as soon as the Internet was created. Although people rely heavily on filters to block incoming spam, proper email marketing can help both businesses and their customers. The ideas suggested in this article can help you increase your sales and gain customer loyalty.
Insert a link to your subscription form into your marketing newsletters. That way, if your customers forward marketing emails to their friends, their friends can easily subscribe to your list too. Using this strategy makes it easy for you to build a large list of potential customers who have agreed to receive your marketing emails.
Follow up with contacts you meet at trade shows. Collect people’s phone numbers when they stop by your table and call them within a couple of weeks of meeting them. Use the follow-up call to check in with your contact and ask him if he would like to receive your marketing newsletter by email.
Focus on one idea with every email message. This can help to keep your customers from becoming bored or confused by information overload. Develop one message, keep it reasonably short and to the point. Your clients will be happy to not have too much information.
Before sending out emails to your subscribers, try to let them know what you will be sending them and how often they can expect to hear from you. This way, they know when to expect your email and they can prevent it from getting automatically sent to their spam folder.
Provide your customers with useful tips or information in each marketing newsletter. Think of the newsletter as an opportunity to demonstrate your expertise in your field. Your customers will trust you more when they see how much you know and will be more likely to buy products or services from you.
Maximize the results of your email marketing by encouraging your readers to respond to every email. Always read and reply to these emails immediately. Building a personal relationship with each of your readers is the best way to convert them into loyal customers. This is also a good way to get more specific feedback on the success of your efforts.
Use a double opt-in procedure that will ensure that your subscribers really desire your emails. This probably seems like overkill, but doing so makes you far less likely to receive spam complaints from people on your list.
Keep in mind that major holidays are not the best time to send out important emails. During these times, people are likely to be preoccupied with personal issues, vacations, and inundations from various other outlets. There are obviously exceptions to this rule. Black Friday, for example, is one occasion where a date relevant campaign is warranted.
Email is a great marketing tool, but it is not an arena where the hard sell is appreciated. Never pressure your subscribers into buying. Put sales pitches at the tail end of your emails, especially if your readers signed up with expectations of informative content. Consider email as a tool to cultivate interest, not instant sales.
Include a customer incentive in your emails. Give your customers a compelling reason to give their business to you instead of your competition. For example, clicking on a link and making a purchase could award them free shopping.
Make responding promptly to emails your top priority. If a potential customer reaches out to you through email, you ought to do everything you can to reply to them within one day. Waiting longer may cost you the customer, and they may mention the lack of response to others.
To maximize the effectiveness of your emails, send them out on Tuesday or Wednesday. Research shows that people are actually more inclined to respond positively to various forms of communication on these days, including email. Not only are they more likely to read your email, but they’re also more apt to click on buttons or links, which means that you’re more likely to see an increase in sales. Send your emails at mid-afternoon for optimal results.
Balance when you send emails. Sending them too frequently can come across as spam and may cause you to lose readers. Not emailing frequent enough can make the recipients feel like they’ve wasted time signing up for emails that they’re not getting enough of. Remember your goals and audience so you can pick a happy medium for your campaign’s frequency.
Do not worry about anti-spam filtering when you compose your marketing emails. You need not avoid any particular phrases or use exotic spelling and punctuation in words like “free.” As long as you are not sending out unsolicited emails, you have already cleared the spam filter hurdle. Write for people instead of machines.
You can create a targeted mailing list by having customers get their friends to sign up too. The reasoning is that their friends are probably interested in the same things as they are and trust a friend’s recommendation. Include a subscribe for the link in your emails so that customers can forward them to friends, helping your mailing list grow by leaps and bounds.
As the article above has demonstrated, when you do email marketing correctly, the recipient doesn’t realize you are actually marketing. Your customers will look forward to emails from you if they contain information which is of value to them. This will help you to increase business and build your brand. It also might bring you customers who are more than willing to purchase your products and offerings. Use what you’ve learned from the article above, and start enjoying success with email marketing.
