Email marketing has been around since the Internet began. Even though there are spam filters and programs that serve to eliminate unwanted emails, email marketing done the right way can benefit both you and those you are trying to reach. This article can help you help others, as well as help your own wallet.
Be sure of all the colors you use in your email are neutral. If colors are too bland, the customer may not want to read the article. On the other hand, if the colors are too bright, it could frustrate the reader. Try to stick with neutral colors, like black, gray, and white.
Follow up with contacts you meet at trade shows. Collect people’s phone numbers when they stop by your table and call them within a couple of weeks of meeting them. Use the follow-up call to check in with your contact and ask him if he would like to receive your marketing newsletter by email.
Before you send out emails, make sure to proofread them. It is imperative that your emails be error free. Prior to transmitting the message, check a sample of the email to make sure that it looks the way you intend for it to look. Don’t forget, if you have embedded links, to check the links to be sure they function properly.
Treat each reader like a relationship. Ask in the first email for permission to send more. In the second email, tell them what discounts, products and services they can expect in future emails. In the third email and after, follow through with the content you promised to provide them with.
Send your opt-ins a link that they must click on to confirm their subscription to your email list. This way, you ensure that it is something that they want to do, and it will protect you from getting complaints about spam. Let your opt-ins know in your pitch that they will need to click on a link.
Consistency is key. Stay with the same logo and color scheme in your email. Make sure that the font you use is readable. Eventually, people will begin to recognize your emails, and they’ll pay closer attention to them. It’s important for any business to have familiarity. The same holds true for email marketing.
Be sure you get a subscriber’s permission before emailing. Anyone who spams in any format will instantly receive a negative reputation. Some say that they might end up not desiring to work with your company any longer.
Get creative with your email designs to find out what works best. Send out a few emails with content and links that differ in their fonts and text color. Play around with image positioning, including buttons and logos. After you’ve sent the emails, find out which ones had the best click-thru rates. Stick with those for the time being, but change it up on occasion to see if you can find a method that works even better. More click-thru rates equate to more sales.
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!
Give your marketing emails the same consideration that you give your site content and other marketing materials. Too often businesses take a too-casual approach to their email marketing efforts, and seemingly small errors like typos end up undermining their readers’ perception of their level of professionalism. Before you add an email to your marketing rotation, ask yourself if it would inspire you to buy.
Try using some sort of call to action within your emails. This will allow your recipients to know what actions are expected of them once they read your email. If the email contains links, make them stand out and also provide instructions on how to use them. You can repeat these sections by including them in both the top and bottom of your messages.
Playing with fonts is fun, and you may be tempted to spice up your emails with exotic fonts. Resist that temptation! Fonts may display differently, or even be replaced by defaults, on someone else’s computer. Even if an odd font does display correctly, there is no guarantee that your recipient will appreciate it the same way you do. To avoid any font-based mishaps, stick with fonts that are widespread, easy to read, and understated.
Add a personal touch to your marketing emails. Personalization goes beyond sending an email with the recipient’s name stuck into the greeting line. Utilize all the information you have gained about your email subscribers. Mine the information about your subscribers. Break them down into smaller buckets based off of similar profiling, and customize your messaging based off of that profiling.
One way to keep your email readers engaged is to ask them questions. These should not be rhetorical questions, either. Provide a feedback channel they can use to send you answers. You could ask for direct replies via email, or send your readers to your social networking pages. However you arrange it, asking for two-way communication is a great way to cultivate loyalty in your subscribers.
If you do email marketing right, it doesn’t even look like marketing. The reader doesn’t even realize the email is an ad. If your emails provide customers with valuable information, they will be more likely to read them and continue looking for more. This helps further your marketing, and it can increase your profits. It also might bring you customers who are more than willing to purchase your products and offerings. So, take the steps outlined above and become a successful email marketer for your brand.
