Here are a few basic tips to guide you on the path to e-mail marketing success. You can expect higher returns on your email marketing investment if you adhere to these basic principles.
- Take a look at your e-mail marketing database list. Send your e-mail announcements only to people who know you. If they don’t recognize your company name you are most likely to get your e-mail stuck in a spam filter. So, make sure all of the e-mail addresses you have on your database have opted in to receive your e-mail announcements.
- Think of your e-mail addresses as people not just as inanimate objects. Because, after all, there is a person and hopefully a customer attached to that e-mail address. So, treat that e-mail address with respect. Don’t sell your e-mail addresses. Make sure you include a privacy statement on your Website and on each e-mail you send out. E-mail marketing is about building relationships.
- Segregate your e-mail contacts into various categories befitting of your particular industry or company requirements. This will help you to tailor your e-mail announcements to a targeted audience. One size doesn’t fit all.
- Engage your audience. After all, this isn’t a one-way conversation. Ask your readers to click on a link for more information. Make your newsletter layout, fonts, and graphic images look inviting. Draw the reader’s attention to your announcement.
- Maximize your delivery rate by formatting your e-mail appropriately. If you use one of the e-mail service providers such as Constant Contact or iContact, for example, they can review your e-mail and offer suggestions for anti-spam formatting.
- Make it clear when your readers sign-up what they will be getting and how often. I send an e-mail newsletter on the 1st of each month. My readers will always know to look in their inbox on that date for the latest marketing information.
- Keep track of your responses and follow up with people who register for your e-mail announcements. I send registrants a free pen with a welcome letter in addition to the automated welcome e-mail they get from my e-mail provider. And analyze each e-mail so that you can tweak your content for the next edition.
- Archive your e-newsletters. It’s a great way to get more exposure via the Web. Search engines can crawl your archived newsletters. People can review your archived newsletter to see if they want to sign up. Or, your existing customers know they can always go to that link to review an old issue. In other words, they won’t have to store your e-newsletter in their inbox.
I hope these suggestions have been beneficial. Try a few and see if your next e-mail announcement or newsletter is successful.
