No one wants their email box to be cluttered up with advertising, so it’s your job as an email marketer to send your reader something they actually want. Informative, interesting and even entertaining emails should be your goal, but how do you achieve that? Continue reading to find some excellent tips from experts in the field.
If you want your email marketing messages to be successful, make sure you have permission to send them. If you do not have permission from your recipients, the potential consequences can range from being added to spam filters all the way up to getting blacklisted by Internet service providers themselves.
Try following up an email to your customers with a notice that tells them not to procrastinate. Insert a suggestion that tells them to purchase now onto the reply. The ending could tell them not to miss this incredible opportunity by waiting. Instead, they should act now to reap the full benefits.
The easier it is to subscribe to your email newsletter, the more subscribers you will have. If you have a physical store, ask your customers for their email address when they make a purchase. If you sell on a website, ask them for their address when they are ready to check out.
Resist the urge to send your customers more than a single marketing email each week. Your customers are busy and don’t want to be bombarded by too many messages. If you send out too many emails, they might not read them anymore and that’s not good if you spent a lot of time working on the messages.
Avoid using exclamation marks as crutches in your emails. If you want to express a sense of urgency or importance, use the structure of your sentence and the words you choose to to make that impact. Overusing this form of punctuation can turn potential customers off and make your message seem insincere.
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.
To improve your email reading rates, offer subscribers the option of seeing your newsletters in either plain text or HTML. Too many companies send their emails out in only one format, discouraging their less tech-savvy readers or alternately disappointing readers that expect a more dynamic presentation. Offering every newsletter in both formats makes it more accessible.
When people opt-in to your email marketing list, you need to let them know what to expect up front. Tell subscribers how often they can expect to hear from you and what types of communications you will be sending them. If they are expecting the volume of mail you will be sending, they are less likely to get frustrated and unsubscribe.
Add a personalized touch to your marketing emails. Personalization goes beyond sending an email with the recipient’s name stuck into the greeting line. Utilize all information your subscribers have given you, no matter how small it may seem. Break down your subscriber list into groups that share the same interests and tailor your messages to these groups as much as you can.
Before sending any promotional emails to customers or potential customers, be sure to get their permission for contact. Email is a powerful tool, and consumers hate when it is misused. Any email contact that isn’t initiated by the consumer feels to them like spam. Your customers must agree to receive additional emails from you, even if they have made purchases in the past.
Keep mobile users in mind when choosing the size of your message. You might be composing your emails on a monitor that has four or even five times the available pixels that a smartphone user has. Send your messages small or scalable so that everyone can read them easily and quickly.
Make your emails focus on your audience, not yourself. Your customers are the ones that make your campaign a hit or a failure Be a great resource to them and try to do what you can to include feedback from them. This can be with polls, comments, etc. Getting them engaged may help you build beneficial relationships for your business’s future.
Take advantage of special holidays and events to push your email marketing efforts. Make your business promotion plan to include a schedule for the entire year. Build relevant campaigns with retail holidays like Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas in mind. Don’t forget to try and grab some extra business by creating special campaigns for times when business is usually slow.
Have a professional-looking design to your email. Choose a color scheme that is appealing without being overwhelming or difficult to read. Keep your design professional, even if you are seeking an informal relationship with your customer base. People are less likely to trust you with their business (and money) if you do not appear to take your business seriously.
Leverage tracking data to send emails to small, targeted groups of your email subscribers. You can track what links or emails are especially interesting to your readers and use that knowledge to send them only the stuff that they might like. Doing this will not only keep them happy, but it can also substantially increase your sales.
Someday you too may be an expert in your field, but for now you need to learn as much as you can to hone your skills and provide you with new ideas. This article is a great stepping stone, but don’t stop here – practice what you’ve learned and continue reading and success will be within your reach!
