At a time when everyone is pushing businesses to become more active on social media as a way to promote their business, email marketing remains the top performer. If your company does not have an ongoing email marketing campaign, you are missing out on a lot of sales.
At this time, nearly 90 percent of all adults have an email address that they actively use. What is even more significant about this figure is that 95 percent of those adults admit that they check their email at least once a day, with the average number being three times daily. At the same time, of those who have social media accounts, only 65 percent stated that they checked their accounts at least on time daily.
So, email still remains the best way to communicate with your clients on a regular basis. Now that this has been established, the next point that you must address is how to correctly interact with your potential clients through email.
People check their email often because they are looking for relevant and important communications. You need to make sure that your email marketing plan meets these needs. You also need to make sure that the potential client wants to hear from your company. If the email is unsolicited, it is considered spam.
Starting An Effective Email Marketing Campaign
Step 1 – Build A Quality List
It may be tempting to purchase an email list, but it is probably the last thing you want to do. Buying a list gives you email addresses to people who will most likely mark your email as spam because it was unsolicited.
You want to build an email mailing list by getting permission from the potential client to include them on your list. How do you do that? Offer the potential client something of value.
If you are selling something, offer your client a coupon for joining your newsletter or mailing list. Make it an instant download so that they will be more inclined to join and make a purchase at that moment. You can also offer other freebies to entice them to join, such as:
- Free e-book
- Free podcast
- Free white papers
The most important thing is that you make the benefit of joining your newsletter or email updates worth the while of the client. Satisfying their instant gratification with a coupon is one of the best ways to get them to leave their email address.
Step 2- Make Sure You Use An Autoresponder
When a person submits their email address to join your list, not only do you want to make sure that they automatically have access to what you offered such as a free coupon or eBook, you also want to have an autoresponder set to say “thank you” for joining our newsletter or updates.
In this thank you note, you should give detailed information on what your recipients should expect from your emails. Include how often they will receive emails, what they should expect in the emails such as “how-to tips,” “new products,” or “sales” and anything else that you may want to include in your updates. Your clients should know what to expect when they see an email from you in their inbox.
Step 3 – Compelling Content
The response to your email will only be as good as your content. Make sure that you follow through with what you have promised your clients. If you have promised “DIY Tips,” make sure that those are in your content. If you promised once-weekly updates, make sure that is all you send.
Your content has to make your company, your product, or your service desirable. Make each section of your email short and sweet. Keep on-point. Remember, people often just scan emails to see if they want to devote the time to read them.
Step 4 – Use The Analytics
All email marketing programs have analytics. After you have launched your campaign, make sure that you look at the facts and figures. How many are being opened? How many brought in a sale? How many people unsubscribed?
All of this data is relevant. To get the best responses in an email marketing campaign, you have to learn what works. It may take three or four campaigns until you are able to find the exact formula that works for your company.
Step 5 – Continue To Manage Your List And Make It Grow
You must continue to work on creating a powerful mailing list. Find new ways to get people to sign up for your lists by changing what “goody” you provide for signing up. Place your sign-up area in a creative place on your site. Encourage your social media guests to sign up for the newsletter or updates to get email only benefits.
To keep your email list from being marked as spam, make sure that you do not put sales sounding titles in the headline. Many email programs automatically put emails in the spam folder that say “congratulations,” “special sale just for you,” or ‘open now for discounts.” Keep your catch lines interesting so that the client will open the email.
You will also want to honor what you have promised to your clients. Do not overload their email box with daily emails if you promised only one a week. Additionally, do not forget to send out your once-weekly email if that is what you promised.
A final thing that you should remember is that you should avoid purchasing lists. Most contain bad addresses or addresses of people that are not interested in your product or service. Some of these lists also violate new privacy laws, especially those in the European Union.
If you dedicate the time to an email marketing campaign, you will be pleased with the results. Statistics have shown that people purchase more from email advertising than they do with a regular visit to the site. Statistics also show that many people who may have been indecisive about a purchase will follow through when they receive a follow-up email. This increase in sales makes it worth your efforts to develop a good mailing list
