Any company that wants to succeed online should develop good relationships with its customers. Email marketing is a very effective way to stay in touch. Here are some excellent ways to use email marketing effectively.
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.
Be especially careful when crafting your first three emails to new customers. A new customer should get an introductory email inviting them to join your marketing list. Once they accept your invitation, the next email should tell them about discounts or special offers they can expect to get now that they’ve signed up. The third email should contain their first newsletter and their special offer.
To get the most of your email marketing, invest in a program that personalizes your emails with every customer’s given name instead of a generic greeting. Ensuring that every email starts with the recipient’s name is key to encouraging your customers to see your newsletters as valuable information and not just more sales spam.
Send your opt-ins a link that they must click on to confirm their subscription to your email list. This way, you ensure that it is something that they want to do, and it will protect you from getting complaints about spam. Let your opt-ins know in your pitch that they will need to click on a link.
Include lots of useful information in all your messages. Don’t just fill them up with information about your products. Include things that will truly help your customers. Information that is useful to readers and can’t be found on your site is particularly appreciated. Also include offers which are exclusive for your products or services. Sending holiday messages or birthday greetings will demonstrate your interest aside from business purchases.
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.
Email marketing should have the branding of your business. Because of this, you need to create a template that will let you incorporate your company colors, fonts and logos that you use on all of your marketing materials. That way, you can take advantage of immediate familiarity on the part of your audience.
Only use an opt-in list when sending email marketing to your customers. When you do not use an opt-in method for emails, you destroy trust and credibility with your existing and potential customers. This will have negative effects on your business as a whole. Some ISPs and web hosts will also refuse to do business with you, which isn’t exactly good for a business that relies on the internet for survival.
You should try and build an email list the best that you can from networking in person as well as on the Internet. You should not buy or rent lists of names that you will email to drum up business. There is no guarantee that any of the people you contact will be interested and you may even end up getting reported to your email service provider.
Consider following up with a rumor that a sale is about to end. Insert a statement that tells your clients to subscribe immediately so that they can take advantage of this sale. The closing of the email could tell them not to miss out on this incredible opportunity and to act now.
Diamonds may be forever, but permission is not. Even after you have subscriber permission, renew it somehow after around nine months, since that is the typical expiration date of permissions given. Not only will prospects feel respected by your polite behavior, you will rapidly identify who is really interested in your material.
The subject is one of the most important parts of your e-mail. If you do not have a subject that immediately grabs the reader’s attention, it is likely that they will not bother to read the e-mail at all. The best written e-mails can be completely worthless without a compelling subject. Make sure that all of your subjects are great!
Offer a bonus, such as a coupon, discount code, or other freebie, in exchange for signing up for your email mailing list. People love receiving free things. An email address is low in value to the customer but high in value to you as a business. People will gladly trade their contact information in exchange for a 10% discount off their next purchase.
Your marketing email does not need to be just black and white only. Your logo should appear, and a color scheme of some sort should also be part of your campaign. However, it is very important that the color scheme be specific and consistent in order for it to be effective for your campaign.
If your company already has a certain brand associated with it, be sure the emails utilize that branding. Use the same color scheme, logo and masthead as your website on each email. Once your brand has gained a favorable reputation and people already trust it, your emails will benefit from its good name.
A good strategy or plan for marketing is the way to have a successful business. Email marketing is a key component of a businesses marketing strategy. These tips will help you reach your business goals by developing a great email marketing program.
