An effective email marketing campaign delivers results and drives customers back to your business. One concern small businesses have is that their email marketing campaigns won’t be effective enough to legitimize the effort that went into it. Consider your main asset: your customer. An ineffective email campaign pushes your customers away from you, resulting in reduced subscriptions and fewer opened emails.
There are a few requirements you need to meet to reduce your chances of losing customers and wasting time with an email campaign doomed to failure.
Permissions
Without proper permission from your users, you’re just sending out spam. You’ve established a customer base, and your customers trust you, but without permission, your efforts and money are wasted. While you’re trying to grow your subscription list, remember not to invade your customers’ inboxes. Get your customers permission prior to sending the first email. Ask during checkouts if they want to subscribe to the list. When you send them email receipts and tracking information, don’t assume they want to sign up for your mailing list, but give them a clear option to do so.
From Field
Companies send thousands of marking emails on a daily basis. Studies show an open rate of 20 to 30 percent. In order to reach more people, the “from” line is the first area you should tweak. You sparked your customers’ attention with the compelling subject line, so now they need to know who’s delivering the message. Email messages move to the trash folder or spam folder more often when customers receive generic messages, such as news@company name or list@company name. Personalize email communication. You want the customer base to know who sends communication from your company. If your business is ABC Company, use the business name in the email address, not a personal email address.
Compelling Subject Line
Send a positive message to your customers, and give a clear call to action. Don’t use passive voice in any of your communications; active communications carry more punch and don’t put people to sleep. Tell your story in fewer than 40 characters. Anything more, and you lose the interest of your target audience. Draw the customer into the email. When you include a compelling subject line, you tell the entire story of the email. This is when the customer decides whether to open the email or send the message to the trash folder. Remember to test the effectiveness with your team prior to sending communications to customers.
Relevant Topics
What message are you conveying to your customers? You’re a business, so build your messages around what you’re offering to customers, especially established ones. This tactic works when attempting to acquire new customers, as well.
Measurements of Success
How do you measure a successful campaign? Email open rates are an effective measurement of success, but not the only one. Were you attempting to sell a specific product? Did you notice a spike in sales? Did sales flat-line? There’s no way for you to know if a campaign was successful unless you started out with specific goals. Find a goal, create your campaign around it and measure your progress. That’s the only way you can tell if you’ve wasted your time or not.
Email marketing is not a lost art. Performed correctly, you will increase your open rate, improve sales and promote customer loyalty.
Lessons in Email Marketing
