Many an online business has been made, or broken, by a single email marketing campaign. If you do it right it can go viral, driving massive traffic to your website. If you do it wrong, on the other hand, it can sink your company. Read this article in full to find tips and techniques to teach you how to do it in a way that benefits your company.
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.
Ask your customers for feedback on your emails. Since your customers are the most important part of your campaign, it is important to know if they are pleased with the emails they receive from you. You could ask them to fill out a short survey with a few questions on what they like and what they dislike.
Try not to send out important emails on or around any major holidays. Your customers will be at home enjoying their day, so it's unlikely they'll be interested in reading your email. There are, of course, exceptions. Such exceptions may include emails with Black Friday promotions or other messages that are centered around a specific holiday.
Get creative with your email designs to find out what works best. Send out a few emails with content and links that differ in their fonts and text color. Play around with image positioning, including buttons and logos. After you've sent the emails, find out which ones had the best click-thru rates. Stick with those for the time being, but change it up on occasion to see if you can find a method that works even better. More click-thru rates equate to more sales.
Post a version of your newsletter with graphics and animation on your website. Then send your email list a plain text version of the newsletter with a link to the web version. This keeps your emails simple enough to stop them from being diverted to the spam folder as well as encouraging your customers to visit your website.
Branding your business is important, and it needs to work with all of your marketing efforts. For this reason, it is important to create a template that incorporates your logo, and consistent formatting throughout all your marketing materials. This helps readers quickly associate your emails with your overall marketing strategy.
Check out spam emails you receive yourself to see what you should not do in your email marketing campaign. Register for a new email address using a free client, use the address in several places online, and watch as your inbox collects spam. Study these emails for examples of what not to do, and tweak your own campaigns as needed. People will be able to recognize your emails from the spam they usually get and trust you.
Automatically unsubscribe customers who don't respond to your marketing materials after a certain number of emails. If your customers aren't responding to your emails anymore, they most likely have lost interest in your newsletter but aren't annoyed enough by it yet to unsubscribe. By unsubscribing them, you avoid generating bad feelings that could hurt your business.
When you are following up with your site's clients, a great tip is to include a free report on your follow-up email. Include a link on your email that invites your clients to click on it to begin. The ending P.S. could urge them to try out these samples that are provided.
When creating text for your email marketing campaign, make sure you use fonts that reflect the tone of what your email is trying to convey to the customer. This is important in providing the right emphasis, and it conveys the message clearly to the customer. This will work wonders in keeping the reader intrigued.
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.
Keep your important aspects of your messages "above the fold." This "fold" refers to the area that is previewed in an email program. Anything that is important should be arranged with this "fold" in mind. Many readers use these to preview a message before deciding to open it. Keep anything important within this area so that they don't have to scroll to find it.
Successful email marketing campaign lists are built organically. Forgo renting or buying pre-made lists, and instead start one from scratch. Get business cards at industry events and have opt-in links on all your web pages. Offer incentives to your subscribers to forward your material to associates they know would be interested. Your niche already has an existing network of social ties within its community, follow those paths.
If you are following up with your customers, you can send a follow-up email to them that includes a warning. Attach a line in your message that allows them to sign up. The closing postscript can include a phrase that this can be a very low investment on their part.
Don't send out your email messages during major sales holidays. While this may seem counter-intuitive, unless you are selling consumer products, your customers just aren't interested in your product that time of year. In addition, it is likely to get buried in all of the other marketing messages they are receiving.
Use other contact mediums besides email. Email is highly effective in garnering business, but there is so much more you can do. Ask your list for their home addresses and cellphone numbers, too. Ask them if they want to receive texts. Different people like different forms of contact and knowing their preferences will enable you to utilize the one that will be most well received.
When you know what to do, creating an email marketing campaign will be easy, effective and profitable. You'll better your online reputation while building profits, and the initial investment of both time and money is small. There is no better way to grow your business, so start creating your campaign today!