Email marketing is not simply a matter of sending out emails to customers and potential customers. You need to know about how it works, what your customers want from you and how to make your email marketing work for you, your customers and your business. Use the tips from this article to develop an email marketing campaign that will give everyone what they want.
Don’t include anyone on your marketing email list who hasn’t asked to be there. Mailing messages to individuals with whom you are unacquainted will make you look like a spammer. People will wonder if you are someone that they know, or if they even care! This can make them delete your emails and waste your time.
Even though it should be obvious, it is important enough to state over and over: Never send unsolicited emails. You should have explicit permission from everyone you send marketing emails to. This is about more than trying not to upset them; a recipient who considers your email spam can cause trouble for you with your service provider.
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.
Include a link at the bottom of any marketing emails that allows people to unsubscribe easily. If someone does not want to receive your messages, providing a simple way for them to unsubscribe is preferable to ending up in their spam folder. It will also help to protect your reputation as a business that respects its customers.
Capture the attention of your readers with the right subject line. You might want to se from 30 to 50 characters and create a sense of urgency. The subject line should give an indication of what the reader can expect once they open the email. Including an attractive incentive will increase the interest of recipients.
Make sure you are working off of a clean list. This keeps the time you spend directed towards targeted customers. Targeting the wrong customers will not help you, and a clean list can get you to more of the right customers much faster. Clean up your list, and get to the right customers!
You need to make sure that you are using a persistent strategy. Make sure that you do your best at being persistent towards the right people, because it won’t make a difference otherwise. Continuing to target the wrong group of potential clients simply creates ill will and is not a good use of resources.
Do not send out emails that rely on images to deliver critical information. Many email clients won’t automatically show images. Your messages may look strange or be impossible for some people to read if the information depends too heavily on graphics. Always put a priority on text, and be sure to use descriptive alt tags if you choose to include images.
Use the right font for the right message. Your font should be indicative of your style and email message, and not convey a message that you don’t wish to send. Choose one that is simple and popular, rather than one that you think is really cool, but not everyone may have.
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.
Be certain your email marketing plan has an option for unsubscribing or opting out. Unwanted emails take storing space and time to delete. Additionally, spamming is a sure way to garner negative publicity at best and blacklisting at worst.
Try using A/B testing for your email marketing campaign. This basically entails creating two very different versions of the same email (A and B) and sending “A” to half of a small test group and “B” to the other half. Whichever half receives the most positive response is the one that you should be using for your campaign.
There are few things more detrimental to a website or business than being accused of spamming, so take every precaution to protect your integrity by adding a confirmation step to your email list, opt-in procedure. This means that visitors who subscribe to your email list should automatically and immediately receive an email from your company asking them to confirm their subscription. The email should have links for both confirming and canceling the subscription Doing so protects your client’s security and ensures that they don’t think you are spam.
Encourage your recipients to forward your e-mails to friends that might be interested. A recommendation from a friend is very effective due to the fact that people trust their friends. This is a great way to introduce your business to potential customers that are very likely to have an interest in your products or services.
Your customers will be more open to your email marketing campaign if you let them choose the frequency of your messages when they sign up. Knowing how often they can expect to hear from you will keep them from feeling surprised or overwhelmed by your messages. This will make them more receptive to what you have to say.
As noted above, email marketing is not as simple as just sending out emails to customers and potential customers. Your content and strategy makes all the difference in whether you email marketing will be a success for whether it will just be another piece of overlooked spam. Use the techniques and the information from the above article to help you launch and email campaign that you and your customers will love.
