Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective methods of reaching customers in the modern marketing world. While it’s a great way to reach out, it’s also heavy with responsibility. Customers need to trust that the marketing team isn’t going to hurt their inboxes by selling information or spamming. Following a few simple email marketing tips will keep your marketing team in the good graces of the customer.
Begin with the newsletter sign up form. The newsletter needs to be easy to obtain, but the form can’t be too long either. Ask questions geared toward your business and future discount offers, but keep it simple so customers won’t be scared away by information overload.
Move on to the welcome letter and a brief introduction into what the subscribers can expect. As you are trying to build trust with your target audience, you want them to know what is coming next. Wrap into the welcome letter information on future newsletters, and consider including a discount as a thank you for signing up.
After the initial customers are captured, concentrate on the newsletter. Make it a scannable piece with headlines and paragraphs; customers are very busy and need to take in the information fast. The email newsletter should also include content on what your customers desire; segmenting your customers helps direct specific news pertinent to each group. For example, you would never send information on apples to banana lovers. Tailor the newsletter to the customer.
The email newsletter also needs consistency and fluency if it is going to work. Keep a calendar to remind the marketing team of newsletter deadlines and schedule newsletters to go out often. Allow time for plenty of editing and for test emails – send test emails internally to make sure the newsletters are not only reading correctly but are showing up on devices nicely. If possible, send the test emails to a number of different devices, such as smartphones and tablets.
Make sure you are mindful of spam, as spam can happen to the best companies by accident. Be sure to only send emails to those who have knowingly signed up for the newsletters. Collecting emails at conferences does not give you the right to send the newsletters unless the person has specifically granted permission. Include an unsubscribe button as well as a disclosure reminding the customer that they signed up for the newsletters.
The newsletters should be shareable and friendly. With social media making a huge impact on the marketing scene, every item published by the marketing team should be shareable. Customers will be more apt to share an article when it is friendly and fun, so use creative imagination to publish a newsletter which will make your customers smile.
Watch your website visitor statistics to test the effectiveness of your emails. If the newsletters are found to have a low rate of click throughs to the website, it’s time to make a change. If there are very few sign ups for the newsletter, again, it’s time for a change. The website visitor statistics will tell you everything you need to know about your newsletter effectiveness.
Finally, don’t email if you have nothing to say. The newsletters need to be informative regarding your product, company and brand. You will lose followers if the emails have no pertinent information every time they are sent.