A lot of people automatically think of spam when they hear of email marketing and are not open minded to it. It is your job to make your emails so desirable that the customers both look and act on them. Read the following article to learn some strategies you can use right now to start an email marketing campaign or improve an existing one.
An excellent tip for email marketing is to follow up with some type of update on your products or services that you are providing. For example, you could add a “buy now” feature onto your email. The ending of your email could inform your readers to keep in mind the up-sell as well.
Before using email marketing, create a test email and send it to a friend or family member. Your loved one can see how the email looks and give you feedback. This way, if any changes need to be made, you can do it before sending the emails out to customers.
Consistency is important. Always make use of the same company color and logo in your email. Ensure the font you’re utilizing can be read easily. After sending a few messages, individuals will recognize your email in their box and they will pay attention. Familiarity is extremely important in any business, especially email marketing.
It is very smart to have people double opt-in in order to receive email messages from you. Although this might seem unnecessary, this guarantees that this person wants to view your emails. As a result, it eliminates the chance that you get into trouble.
You should get in touch with your subscribers at certain intervals and confirm with them that they are still interested in receiving emails from you. Most companies do this every nine months so that they can be sure that they are not being seen as an annoyance. This will also guarantee that the people on your email list have genuine interest and are not just taking up space.
When you are building an effective email marketing campaign, you need to have the proper sign-up forms on your company website. Make sure you have them on every page, and also make sure that they are in the proper locations on your site pages. This is key to getting the customers to sign up.
Find out who your competitors are and sign up to their emails. You will be able to see what content, they are sending to their subscribers and figure out what aspects to use and which to stay away from. Just be sure not to steal their content, as this could constitute plagiarism.
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.
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.
It may seem obvious, but it is essential to your email marketing campaign that the email addresses you are sending to are correct. Don’t waste your time by looking for address or by getting back invalid emails. You can spend your precious time in better ways!
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!
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.
Emphasize the benefits of your product or service whenever possible. Subscribers will want to know what’s in it for them, so tell them–in the subject line, in your links, and in your content. Your subscribers will be much more interested in your message if they feel that it can help them in some way.
Solicit feedback in your emails. Ask a thought-provoking question and ask your readers to respond. This will engage those on your list, and they will feel like they are having a more personal experience than they otherwise would. You will also glean valuable feedback that you can use to adjust your emails if needed.
Use plain text and hyperlinks in your email messages, and save the images and Flash animation for your web page. Many email services now filter out images and animations in the name of consumer safety, meaning that your lists may not even see your carefully-crafted images. Plain text messages are guaranteed to go through intact, and then the images on your website will catch your viewers.
If one of your customers is not happy with your products or services, you could send a follow-up email to this person that apologizes to them. Include a link on the email that tells this person to click on it in order to listen to the apology with their own ears. The concluding postscript could inform them that they can get a free sample by clicking on the provided link.
Your audience must be your focus as you take the knowledge you’ve gained from this article and build it into a campaign. What are they interested in seeing? What reading material would interest them? Is there a way to turn these ideas into sales? Apply what you’ve learned here, and start building your business.
