Most business owners are concerned with attracting more customers while spending less money. Email marketing is a great way to accomplish this, and you can get started immediately. If you wish to learn more about utilizing this strategy to increase the success of your business, read this article. The following information will explain how your business can benefit.
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.
Do your best to create emails that are personal. Like any other kind of marketing, treating your customers as individuals can make them more likely to respond positively to your message. Use your customer’s names in the emails that you send them, and thank them in a personal way. This will give them the impression that your business cares and can go a long way toward increasing sales.
Be persistent in your attempts to reach customers. You don’t have to send emails daily, but keep in mind that you may not capture a customer’s attention, or business, until he or she has been exposed to your brand or products several times. Touch base often, but not so frequently that it seems too annoying.
Even though it should be obvious, it is important enough to state over and over: Never send unsolicited emails. You should have explicit permission from everyone you send marketing emails to. This is about more than trying not to upset them; a recipient who considers your email spam can cause trouble for you with your service provider.
The easier it is to subscribe to your email newsletter, the more subscribers you will have. If you have a physical store, ask your customers for their email address when they make a purchase. If you sell on a website, ask them for their address when they are ready to check out.
Let your readers choose the layout of your content. Any messages with images, graphics and JavaScript is likely to get eaten by software filters and never seen by human eyes. Send out basic text or rich text format including a link to your website, and the option of an HTML version for those that want it.
Your emails must be personal. The more personal they are. The better people will respond to them. Do your best to communicate in a way that doesn’t scream “Advertising.” Speak in a friendly one-on-one style with an amicable tone. By using your emails in a respectful, familiar manner, you will be able to make use of the most personal advertising method, there is.
Rather than purchasing or renting a mailing list, build your own from the ground up. You can do this by including opt-in forms on your website, gathering business cards at conventions or other industry events, and encouraging your subscribers to share your emails with others, which can garner even more subscribers.
An email marketing campaign is one way to quickly grow your business. Therefore, make sure you are prepared with a business strategy to fully deliver what the customers expect and what you tell them they are going to get from you. It is important that the trust is not broken between you and the customer.
When designing your opt-in form, do not pre-check boxes by default. Leaving boxes unchecked ensures that customers are actively engaged in the opt-in process, which makes them more likely to sign up only for the content they truly want to receive. This saves your customers from the hassle of unchecking boxes that don’t interest them, and it boosts your trustworthiness.
The emails you send out as part of your marketing campaign should start out with a welcoming, personalized tone. Include the name of the recipient in the subject line and the opening of the message. This will make your customers feel more receptive to your message and be more likely to patronize your business.
Make succinct subjects. Short subject lines, particularly those with less than sixty characters, have a better chance to engage and entice readers than longer ones. If a long subject line is unavoidable, be sure to include any important information first.
Be straight forward with your recipients about what they will be receiving. When someone opts to receive e-mail from you, make sure they know what they’re agreeing to. Keep information easily visible about what they will be receiving in these e-mails and how often these e-mail will arrive in their inbox.
Respect for your subscribers has to be the cornerstone of your email marketing efforts. One way to show this respect is to limit your frequency of communication with them. Familiarity breeds plenty of other negative traits besides contempt! Limit yourself to two or three emails per subscriber per month. If you communicate more often, you risk losing readers’ interest and becoming background noise.
Your email subscription confirmation should be opt-in. This gives your customers the opportunity to think about whether they really want your marketing emails before they agree to receive them. It might seem counter-productive, but this extra measure will help keep your mailings from going to anyone who doesn’t want them, and thus, keeps reports of spam or misuse from occurring.
As you are now aware, any business can use email marketing strategies to capture more consumers at a much cheaper cost than most other marketing campaigns. There’s no reason to avoid email marketing! Use the tips you’ve learned here to implement your own marketing strategy and increase sales today!
