In a world where billions of emails are filtered into spam folders daily, thinking about email marketing might have left you worried about doing your business’ reputation more harm than good. Although you’ll never hear anyone say that they enjoy marketing emails, there’s no denying that they’re hugely cost-effective; shooting off a few emails doesn’t cost much.
So, what have you got to lose by sending marketing emails? Well, your reputation, for one – and your customers. Before you head off to get started on your mailing list, read our top tips for email marketing success.
Tip #1. Ask First:
Sending your target audience unsolicited emails, spammy content or click-bait subject lines is to be strictly avoided if you want to achieve anything with your online marketing campaign. Rather than simply focusing on click-through alone, consider your customers and be polite by asking them for their permission to send them an email.
To do this, you can use a newsletter sign-up button on your website, links on your social media page, or a nicely-worded, to-the-point initial email inviting them to join your mailing list. Once your customers have given the go-ahead, they’ll be expecting your email and are more likely to open and read it.
Tip #2: Update Regularly:
Getting the timing right is imperative for your email marketing campaign to do well. You don’t want to send emails too frequently, but you run the risk of your subscribers completely forgetting about you if you want too long in between.
Email marketing automation solutions will help you make sure your emails are timed perfectly. They allow you to set your ideal timeframe between sending emails, ensuring your subscribers don’t miss a thing.
Tip #3. Include Interesting Links:
People don’t like to hang around in their email inbox. So, don’t have your readers trawling through a lengthy e-mail. Instead, break it up by providing links that they can visit, such as a round-up of the week’s most popular posts on your blog, exclusive links for subscribers only, and links to any other resources that you think they’ll find handy.
When it comes to designing your email marketing campaign, keep in mind that interactivity is key to success with customers. The more flexibility and freedom your subscribers have to get involved, learn something new or send in a request, the more likely they’ll be to stick around.
Tip #4. Stop Selling:
No customer today wants to constantly hear about how much they need a product. In fact, your business will be better off leaving old-school selling techniques out of email marketing altogether. Every day, millions of sales emails are sent to the Trash folder. Yours needs to do better.
How to do this? Identify problems and issues that your customers have, and provide them with the solutions. Engage on social media and encourage your readers to share their feedback and opinions, so you can tailor the email content to suit them perfectly. This will encourage customer loyalty; once you have this you won’t need to tell your customers ‘why’ they should buy anything from you.
