Are you failing to see the positive results you want from email marketing strategies? Does the concept of email marketing interest you, but leave you unsure of where to start? This article was written just for you! Below, are some great ideas to help you get started and improve your email marketing.
Minimize traditional email marketing activities during the holidays. Customers are preoccupied with family and friends, and are less likely to be paying attention to business email. Your odds of ending up in the spam box are considerably higher, which could have longer term implications for your bottom line. The major exception to this would be a business directly related to the holiday activities. Otherwise, give yourself a break and enjoy some downtime yourself. Business will be back on track in a day or two.
Always seek permission before sending marketing emails to potential customers. Sending unsolicited emails will quickly have you labeled a spammer. Getting permission to send your messages doesn’t have to be hard; offer something valuable to your customers in exchange for the ability to email them, such as a discount, coupon, or other sign-up incentive.
If you want your email marketing messages to be successful, make sure you have permission to send them. If you do not have permission from your recipients, the potential consequences can range from being added to spam filters all the way up to getting blacklisted by Internet service providers themselves.
Steer clear of renting or purchasing lists to pad your email marketing database. Not only do you not know if the emails you have purchased are truly your target market, but the lists can actually hurt your deliver-ability rates and ultimately your reputation. As much as possible, build your list organically.
Make sure to email only people you know. Emailing people who don’t know your nor your products can seem like spam. They won’t know who you are, and they won’t care what you’re selling. Their lack of care towards you and your business will most likely cause them to just mark it as spam, which just made your effort pointless.
If you have images or graphics, put them on the left side of the email message. Make sure that your call to action element is always on this side. Research has documented that this location produces almost double the number of clicks to your product, service or website than placing these elements anywhere else does.
Major holidays are generally not the best time to send marketing emails. People do not have time to check their emails as much since they are away from work and have limited access to their computers. There are, of course, exceptions. For example, an email about your Black Friday deals.
Consider using text emails instead of graphically intense HTML emails for your campaign. You may be thinking that the graphics will engage your reader more, but it’s usually not the case. Many people today have trained themselves to delete emails with lots of imagery, assuming they are spam. As well, those images often trigger spam filters, meaning your message is never received by some people on your email list!
You should send your emails as a plain text every once in a while instead of always sending them in HTML format. This gives things a more personal touch and helps the subscriber feel that you are trying to connect. Do not use it too much though because then you may be seen as being too unprofessional.
Test sending your email marketing on different days of the week and at various times during the day. You’ll find that different times and dates will increase or decrease your open rates to your emails. Note the best time/day of the week mixtures and plan your most important email marketing campaigns to be released during those windows.
As time passes, smartphones will become the medium that your subscribers use to read your emails. These types of devices don’t have as much resolution as computer monitors; therefore, you won’t have as much space that you can work with. Knowing the limits of these mobile screens will allow you to make emails that your users can read.
There are zombie email addresses, and people do sell them. This not only wastes your time, but it keeps your messages from getting to the right targeted customers. Make sure you know what you are getting into, and make sure you are sending messages to people that could actually do business with you.
Develop a mailing list of customers who are genuinely interested in your products. Do this by learning what your most profitable customer base desires and giving them the opportunity to recommend your mailings to like-minded friends and other contacts. If you give the impression that the mailing list is exclusive and only for a select few who are interested, your mailing list will be more targeted and your mailings will seem to carry more weight.
Keep mobile users in mind when choosing the size of your message. You might be composing your emails on a monitor that has four or even five times the available pixels that a smartphone user has. Send your messages small or scalable so that everyone can read them easily and quickly.
Have a succinct subject line. Short (60 characters of less) subject lines prompt recipients to open the message more often than really long subject lines that don’t seem to have a point. If you do not feel that you can keep your subject brief, put the most crucial information at the start of the subject.
Email marketing is an excellent way to communicate with your customers and sell products, but it has to be done correctly to realize those benefits. Now that you’ve read the above tips, you have an idea of what you must do to implement a successful email marketing campaign. Use what you’ve learned here, and the results will make themselves apparent quite quickly.
