With the increasing dominance of blogging and social media platforms, there has been an open questioning of established marketing techniques using older mediums, such as email, to develop and grow a brand.
Since the advent of Facebook business pages, twitter trends, and SEO techniques, businesses have become increasingly reliant upon more recent, complex marketing initiatives, abandoning previously tried and tested email marketing approaches which for many appear outdated and redundant.
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Email Redundant as a Marketing Avenue
Looking at the statistics, there are currently over 4.4 billion email accounts worldwide, which is a substantially larger potential customer base than Facebook and Twitter with their 1.1 billion and 500 million registered users, respectively.
With over 45 billion emails sent out daily compared to 4.7 billion ‘Shares’ on Facebook and 400 million ‘Tweets’ on Twitter, the sheer potential for this ‘old’ advertising avenue is quite staggering.
Beyond the statistics, think about anecdotal evidence. How many people do you know who have a Facebook account? Or a Twitter account? Or a profile page on another social media platform?
You probably know quite a few, but you’ll also know people who don’t agree with the high level of connectivity brought about by social media, or the potential for losing personal data. But ask yourself, how many people do you know who have email accounts? The answer will be almost everyone.
In other words: Email is still the number one avenue through which advertisers and businesses can reach the largest number of potential customers.
And yet, it is something which is ignored by many. Don’t make the same mistake, take advantage of this easy, simple, and inexpensive means to get your product or service out there and you and your business will reap the benefits financially.
10 Email Marketing Tips and Tricks
Let’s now take a look at some of the most effective email marketing tips out there to get you started:
1. Create Mailing List
Creating a mailing list is the single most important aspect of running an email marketing campaign. With a master list of clients or customers, it is the quickest and most effective way to directly and personally contact your customer-base, being far less intrusive than a phone call or door-to-door campaign.
It is highly recommended to use a company such as mail chimp where you can easily and cheaply organize an effective campaign. The service will provide a simple way to incorporate sign-ups to your mailing list via your website.
Any automatic email sent to a customer after a transaction should contain a link to subscribe to your mailing list for future offers. Perhaps even offer a discount to mailing list members only.
2. Get The Permission
This is essential. You MUST have permission to send out emails. Most country’s data protection laws now require you to have permission to send out emails to customers on a regular basis.
If you are caught without this permission (which is given by a customer signing up for your mailing list) then your emails may be blacklisted, not reaching their destinations and you could be fined heavily.
3. Stay In Touch
Regular contact is a must, as this increases the visibility of your product or service and encourages repeat business. An email once a week should suffice to achieve this.
Provide relevant and valuable information in your email and try to refer every one by their name to make that connection.
4. Apply Call to Action
Each email should include a call to action. In the marketing industry this means that you are asking for a customer to do something, whether it be to buy a new product or take part in a limited discount, all emails must have a point to them and not just a random case of ‘Hi, how are you?’.
5. Prioritize Subject Headings
Subject headings are incredibly important. They alert a customer immediately to what is inside of the email. If it isn’t something desirable or interesting then the email will simply go into the trash folder without ever having been read.
The worst offenses are those email campaigns which reuse the same subject headings or, worse still, promise something which isn’t actually in the email. This infuriates clients or customers.
6. Don’t Spam!
Speaking of infuriating customers, one thing which will be sure to turn a recipient away from your business and encourage them to remove themselves from your mailing list is spam.
While regularity is key, too many emails will clog up people’s inboxes, while recipients are less likely to read such emails if they are supplied in a constant stream. Stick to once a week and your email campaign will be far more successful.
7. Integrate With Social Media
While we said that social media has not replaced email marketing, it should still be used! Integrate your mailing list with your social media platforms. Inform people about your list on your Facebook page or Twitter account and encourage people to sign up for it with limited offers.
8. Include Links
If there are no links in your emails, you might as well throw them in the bin. What is the point of sending out a marketing campaign via email if a customer cannot simply click on a link provided, taking them directly to what you are offering?
Links, links, and links. Remember this, and not just to your products but to your website and social media profiles as well.
9. Targeting
As your mailing list grows, you may wish to offer different services to different people. Target those more likely to buy a certain product or service within your mailing list, creating different versions of your campaign.
10. Add Email Analytics
If you have signed up for a mailing list service, then you will be provided with priceless information which could transform your advertising efficiency. For example, you will be able to see how many recipients actually opened a specific email and how many clicked on a link.
With this information you can perfect your email marketing campaigns, using subjects and approaches which are giving you real results, while abandoning efforts which are counterproductive.
Conclusion: Keep Researching
This is only the beginning. There are many other techniques which will help you utilize email as an indispensable marketing platform. Continue to adapt your approach and learn from your successes and failures, and in the end, your marketing campaign will be hugely effective.
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