Whether you are using email marketing to simply gain some extra recognition for your home business or employing an all-out marketing campaign intended to reach millions, it can be a very effective form of marketing. This article will provide you with some great tips for having a more successful email marketing campaign.
Develop a consistent format and schedule for your marketing emails. By doing this, your customers will learn when and what to expect. Find a professional template that suits your business and used it every time. Alert your customers to the most relevant information at the beginning of the email.
Always get permission! Unsolicited email is not welcome, and in certain cases, can get your ISP blocked. When contacting someone, always include a newsletter or an offer – this way the customer has the chance to agree to receive your messages. The last thing you want is to be branded a spammer.
Ask your customers for feedback on your emails. Since your customers are the most important part of your campaign, it is important to know if they are pleased with the emails they receive from you. You could ask them to fill out a short survey with a few questions on what they like and what they dislike.
Make sure to get permission before emailing any client or customer. People generally see unwanted emails like spam and delete or ignore them without taking the time to read them. It may even violate your ISP’s policy by doing so.
Let your readers choose the layout of your content. Any messages with images, graphics and JavaScript is likely to get eaten by software filters and never seen by human eyes. Send out basic text or rich text format including a link to your website, and the option of an HTML version for those that want it.
Keep in mind that major holidays are not the best time to send out important emails. Many people will never even see your email because they will not be near their offices or their computers. Of course, as always there are exceptions to this rule. Perhaps you want to target a Black Friday deal or a Cyber Monday special.
An email marketing campaign needs a design and testing phase, just like anything else. Plan on putting in time making sure that your messages get past all techniques used for fighting spam, from content filters to image blocking and java-script suppression. You can send out a million messages blindly and not ever know if they are even seen.
In order to banish all concerns about spam and ensure that no one on your subscriber list is there by mistake, consider employing a double opt-in strategy. Your first message should require some sort of additional action, like replying or clicking on a link, to make certain that the reader wants to receive further emails.
The more options you give your customers, the more effective your email marketing will be. Allows your subscribers to select the number of messages that they would like to get, and the amount of information that they want to disclose to you. Providing these options to subscribers helps them feel safe and secure.
Use tools to measure the success of your email marketing campaign. You should learn all you can about how many times your emails are read, if your subject lines are being read, which articles you write are being read, etc. Using information like this can help with the future success of your campaign since you will know what works and what does not.
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.
You don’t want to alienate a good customer just to keep your email base high. For this reason, you should always give readers an easy and obvious way to unsubscribe. To put a silver lining on unsubscribe requests, constantly ask readers why they want to unsubscribe and use that information to improve the experience for future readers.
Make sure everyone on your marketing list has given you permission to email them. If not, people will think of you as a spammer; they will send your mail to the junk folder, delete it or leave your list. If a lot of complaints are sent to your email provider, you could get in trouble for violating spam policies.
Call to action wording is essential to a successful email campaign. The people that receive your emails need to know what’s expected of them. Include obvious links with instructions on how your readers should proceed once they get to your site. These messages can be repeated at the beginning and the end of your messages.
Choose appropriate but useful fonts for your messages. Try and select a font family that accomplishes two things. It should reflect your niche or industry, as well as the tone of your content. It should also be a universal category of fonts that will work on all computers and email devices.
Place important copy and call to action on the left-hand side of the images in your emails. Studies have shown that customers respond more strongly to copy that is written to the left of the images in an advertisement. Links to follow should be placed next to images, not below them, in order to grab best the customers’ attention.
Now that you are equipped with some effective and proven email marketing tactics, it’s time to get out and use them! The tips above will help turn your bland marketing schemes into successful ones by using email and the internet to reach limitless audiences and get your message out there.
