The high rollers in the business world know that, although they may seem to be on a winning streak, luck can change in an instant and take away all they’ve worked for. Business owners need to be constantly aware and ready with a responsive strategy the moment things change. Your first line of communication with your clients and potential clients? Email marketing.
Don’t furrow your brow just yet. Email marketing campaigns have come a long way from the pyramid schemes, fake foreign investment “opportunities” and phishing techniques of the past. The email marketing of today is far more sophisticated. It is personalized and designed to appeal to the specific people you are trying to reach and has become a great tool for reaching an audience that truly wants to know about your business.
The field of email marketing has made enormous strategic shifts since spam filters were introduced to effectively direct marketing emails into the virtual trash. Moreover, it was also discovered that a company’s netiquette, or how they interact over the web with customers, needed to be more polite and respectful to avoid isolating potential clients. As long as your business observes proper manners in sending marketing emails, you can reap large benefits. It can pave the way for your company to build a stronger customer base, tap more markets and ultimately achieve higher returns. In 2012, 67% percent of marketers found email marketing as their most powerful marketing tool. This explains why US firms have not lost interest in investing in this marketing approach. Studies predict rising investments over the next three years.
A marketing email with great original content is a potent recipe for increasing readership. Marketing brochures are costly and more often than not, get thrown in the trash or become outdated so quickly as to be rendered unusable. Doing it digitally is an eco-friendly way of bringing information where it is welcomed and wanted while pleasing all parties including Mother Nature and her forests. An email campaign is a cost-effective marketing tool that is inexpensive and protective of the environment—which matters to many of your clients and it reflects well on your business if they know that you share their values.
People have grown attached to their gadgets of choice, which they use to constantly check email, social media and more. This makes email marketing the wisest method of reaching your intended market effectively and fast! People these days have more face time with their smartphones than actual human interaction, so it makes sense that people are more likely to respond to digital messages. Companies can leverage this fact by sending, tracking and revising email campaigns quickly and cheaply.
A well-written email can go a long way with just a few keystrokes. Traditional mail on the other hand, tends to be one-sided and doesn’t provide the same convenience, ease or speed. To increase your chances of getting a response, make sure you get these three basics covered:
1.) An intriguing subject - You can also think of it as fishing—your subject line is bait to reel in the big fish. A subject that lacks luster often end up in the trash folder. Now, we don’t want that to happen right? Word it carefully so your intended recipients would open your email.
2.) Be simple but engaging – Once the connection is established, it is equally important to sustain your reader’s interest from beginning to end.
3.) Personalize your content– Analyze your market and use the gathered data to hit the bull’s eye. In order to make a better offer; you need to know the interests of your subscribers and appeal to them.
It’s important to tag these emails so you can better track how well each email performs. This way, you can have a 360-degree view of how well your recipients are responding to your campaign. An efficient tracking system provides a wealth of information that would help you make the necessary campaign adjustments as you see fit.
Start Hacking your Email Marketing
Simply put, an email campaign is the use of digital messages to carry out business functions whether marketing or transactional in nature. Let us differentiate these two email types:
Marketing emails – These are emails sent to a list of people who signed up to receive newsletters from your company.
Transactional emails – These are system-generated messages to confirm common transactions like an order confirmation, payment reminders and others. It has been observed that emails of this nature have a higher incidence of being opened and read by recipients; which gives companies a window to offer complementary products to a recent purchaser.
To have a higher success in your email campaigns, here are 6 steps to get you started:
1. Enchant your email recipients with a grand entrance – Come up with an irresistible subject and be sure to keep the momentum all the way to the end.
2. The spam folder means game over – Just like courtship, set your best foot forward when sending your first marketing email. The goal here is to have your recipients say “yes” to knowing more about your company, products or service. If you can avoid being flagged as spam, you have the possibility of starting a fruitful business relationship.
It is important to keep a well-maintained mailing list. Do not ignore spam reports; make sure that you execute your email campaign in accordance with the CAN- SPAM Act. If you notice that there are more recipients opting out of the mailing list, you are doing something wrong and it’s time to take some damage control measures.
3. Review your emails and make sure it is perfect before hitting the send button - No one wants to receive a half-baked message. We’ve heard this countless times but often disregard it anyway. Again, remember to sustain the interest of your readers from the subject down to the last detail. Here are some pointers:
- Lengthy emails are a no-no. Use power words that hold some significance to your readers.
- Let bullet points help point out the essence of your message.
- Only use pictures when necessary. Messages with photo attachments take longer to load; in fact, some mobile devices are unable to load images. In addition, some email providers block images by default or the system automatically send emails with large files to the spam folder.
4. Draw traffic to your site by making your links deliciously stands out - Encourage readers to interact by providing numerous and obvious places to click and easy ways to conveniently reach you. Additionally, tell them exactly what you would like them to do and why it will benefit them. Don’t assume they know what you want. People are often hurried and distracted, help them out by providing a clear message.
5. Don’t make your readers go through a labyrinth in order to unsubscribe - Although this is the direct opposite of our goal, but you should provide this option clearly as no one likes to be bullied to make a purchase. Doing so would hurt your campaign in the long run as the recipients would resort to flagging your email as spam which could get you banned from the network.
6. Run some tests before launching your campaign - This is to make sure that emails, links and other objects that you are using work across all platforms and devices. You don’t want your big launch to backfire right? You surely don’t want all your hard work to go to waste so it is better to be safe than risk looking unprofessional.
Don’t limit yourself to these tips—there are still numerous ways to successfully hack your marketing campaign for limitless growth. These secrets, however, should place you head-and-shoulders above your competitors.
We are committed to learning about and helping small businesses to grow their presence online. To learn about affordable ways we can help you, visit www.prontomarketing.com
