Email marketing is one of the most effective ways of advertising to come along in a long time. Emails can be the best way to keep in touch with customers, to offer customers special deals and to reach out to new customers. This article was developed to help you launch an internet campaign that will accomplish all of these goals.
You, or someone else, should proofread your email before you send it to customers. Ensure that it is free from typographical and grammatical errors. You should also make certain that the message flows easily. By checking these three issues are addressed, your email marketing will have a professional appearance.
Even though it should be obvious, it is important enough to state over and over: Never send unsolicited emails. You should have explicit permission from everyone you send marketing emails to. This is about more than trying not to upset them; a recipient who considers your email spam can cause trouble for you with your service provider.
Be prepared to respond to emails if your email marketing is done properly. If you take too long to respond, you may miss a bunch of opportunities. If you provide good content that is free, be prepared to get responses to it from your recipients. You must be prepared and available as much as you can.
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.
In addition to using email marketing, incorporate SMS marketing into your campaign. Have customers sign up for an SMS option and send them text messages when on the go. When these two methods are used together, you have a better chance of getting more customers to sign up for your product.
Put real consideration into where you place links in your marketing newsletters. For example, you don’t want to send readers away from your email before you give them their call to action. You also don’t want to put your priority links at the end of an email where they may be overlooked.
Do not take up permanent residence in your readers inboxes. Remember that they email for a number a reasons, from work to family. You are probably sharing that space with other marketers. Send out messages often enough to stay on their mental radar, but more than once a week is probably going to annoy them and backfire.
Occasionally mix your format up to add personality. If you typically send out email marketing messages composed in HTML, then occasionally send one or two of them using a plain text layout. When written well, this can actually come across as rather simple and intimate, giving your customers an emotional avenue towards your products and services.
Your opt-in should have a field for customers’ first names at the very least. By doing this, you can include their name in each email so the message feels more personal. Taking the time to address your potential customer by their name will cause you to stand out from the others.
If you are going to incorporate graphics into your e-mails, you should make certain that the e-mails are still readable if the recipient chooses not to display those graphics. A great way to do this is to utilize ALT tags so that replacement text will be displayed when the images cannot be displayed. It might also be a good idea to place the bulk of your images near the bottom of the e-mail.
Try using A/B testing for your email marketing campaign. This basically entails creating two very different versions of the same email (A and B) and sending “A” to half of a small test group and “B” to the other half. Whichever half receives the most positive response is the one that you should be using for your campaign.
One way to keep your email readers engaged is to ask them questions. These should not be rhetorical questions, either. Provide a feedback channel they can use to send you answers. You could ask for direct replies via email, or send your readers to your social networking pages. However you arrange it, asking for two-way communication is a great way to cultivate loyalty in your subscribers.
A sales list that is extremely specific and has a target audience can work well for any business. This can be accomplished by encouraging your loyal customers, along with their many contacts, to sign up for your email dispatches. If you give the impression that the mailing list is exclusive and only for a select few who are interested, your mailing list will be more targeted and your mailings will seem to carry more weight.
In today’s mobile world, almost nothing will hurt your email marketing campaign more than not making your message and hyperlinks accessible to mobile users. Imagine many people getting your email when they check their phones but not being able to access your site. This would affect your campaign in a highly negative manner.
Apply a consistent and professional color scheme to your email marketing campaign. Nothing will strike a more visual chord in your subscriber’s minds. Think to your personal favorite brands, and their colors come to mind readily. Search your favorite Internet search engine for color schemes, and you can quickly find one appropriate for your industry, or even distinct within it.
It has been shown that the internet has revolutionized the way that businesses are run, and email marketing is a part of that. Now, businesses can reach out to more customers easier than ever, and at a fraction of the price. Use the techniques from the above article to present the most effective email campaign to your customers.
