Email marketing has been done almost as long as the Internet has been around. Aggressive spam filters have been created to deal with the torrent of unwanted email messages, but not all marketing emails are spam. Many people voluntarily sign up to email marketing lists because it benefits both the business and consumer. Continue reading to find some simple ideas to ensure people want to read the emails you send.
Insert a link to your subscription form into your marketing newsletters. That way, if your customers forward marketing emails to their friends, their friends can easily subscribe to your list too. Using this strategy makes it easy for you to build a large list of potential customers who have agreed to receive your marketing emails.
To get people to opt-in and give permission for you to send email marketing messages to them, offer an incentive. Offer a discount or a coupon on one of your products or services. Include a whitepaper or newsletter about your niche or market. Give your prospect something in return for access to their inbox.
In order to make customers excited about your emails, try giving special discounts or promotions through newsletters. The readers are not only more likely to eagerly read the messages themselves, but they’re also more likely to pass the info on to friends. A good referral program can increase your number of customers.
Do not ever send emails to your customers more than one time per week. Your subscribers are probably receiving tons of email messages every single day. Sending several emails a week can eventually result in people deleting what you send without even taking a proper look and ignoring your hard created content.
Be sure that your landing page lives up to the customer’s expectations. The subscriber is obviously interested in your product if they have clicked on the link in your email. You do not want them to be disappointed by clicking on the link, and finding the page to be other than what they thought it would be.
Avoid using too many graphics in your marketing newsletters. Some email servers block graphics, so avoid graphics to get your message across more effectively. The spam folder is the likely destination for photo laden email.
Color is important, even when it comes to email! Your email messages should have a consistent color scheme that is both professional and easy to read. This is especially important once you start designing more advanced, HTML rich messages. If you are unsure about making your own selections, a little Internet research can point you towards excellent color schemes.
Do not use email messages that require graphical elements in order to present key facts. Many email clients won’t display images right away. Your message will become impossible to read if the images are not displayed correctly. All images need descriptive alt tags and relevant information should be conveyed by plain text.
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.
People should be able to opt out from your mailing list easily. Even though sending emails is basically free, they can still take money out of your pocket. Also, the ill will caused by a perception that you are a spammer will hurt your business and potentially prompt online blacklisting of your enterprise.
Always test out how your email messages will show up on a lot of different electronic platforms. During the design process, see how it looks using different browsers, email systems and operating systems. Messages can look differently through different email providers.
Make sure your email campaign matches your brand. Use the same logos, fonts, colors as well as a similar messaging style to what your readers could find on your website. This helps the receivers of your email feel comfortable with the content and makes them more likely to open it.
You might want to consider following up to your clients with some type of surprise bonus that you are providing them. Include a link on your email that tells them to click on it. The concluding postscript could inform them that they can get all the details on this by clicking on the provided link.
Have an exit strategy for customers that stop responding to your mailings. If a customer is no longer interested in the products you have to sell, they’re going to be irritated and even angered by continued contact. Determine a number of messages or a length of time that you’ll keep sending messages, then if the customer doesn’t respond, remove them from your mailing list.
Take precautions to avoid having your emailed flagged as spam by major internet service providers. Many ISPs have strict security measures in place to detect spam before it is delivered to a client. These spam filters determine if an email is spam by relying on specific criteria. If an email displays too many of these indications, it is deemed to be spam and automatically deleted. These criteria include the use of words such as “discount”, “save,” and “free” in both the subject line and content of an email. Although it may seem difficult to eliminate these words, there are creative ways to capture the attention of your customers and make them aware of your promotions through email without setting off any spam filter alarms. It’s better to have an email reach your customers without these words than to risk having it not reach your customers at all.
A correctly formatted email used for marketing purposes won’t appear like marketing to your customer. Providing a valuable service or relaying great information means that your clients will want to read your emails. This will do much more than help you build your brand, it will help you build your company. It also might bring you customers who are more than willing to purchase your products and offerings. Use what you’ve learned from the article above, and start enjoying success with email marketing.
