Email marketing done right can drive sales
Tips for a successful email marketing program
Most business owners associate “email marketing” with spam. If you don’t use an email marketing program strategically, it is spam. Used correctly, however, it puts you in regular contact with interested customers who want to hear about your products and services. Email can be a good way to remind customers that you’re ready to meet their needs when the opportunity arises. Here are a few tips to help you structure an effective email marketing plan.
Go for the “opt-in.” Give your customers the opportunity to opt-in to your email marketing program. Opt-in customers are genuinely interested in what you have to say. These are the people you want your marketing program to reach. It doesn’t make sense to fill your mailing list with people you don’t know, have never done business with and probably not interested in your products or services. A couple hundred really interested customers represent much likelier conversions than 10,000 people you’ve never done business with before.
Keep it short. Your email marketing program will be much more effective if you keep your mailer short. Some strategies limit the mailer to a single topic. This allows the reader (and the marketing team) to focus on just one thing at a time. This approach is also very helpful for customers who use mobile devices. They can’t manage long email messages that are jam-packed with photos, videos and links. Reduce the content to the minimum needed to get your message across, and both you and your customers will be happier. If you’re not sure about this, send yourself a test copy of the marketing email and try to open it on your phone or tablet. You’ll immediately see where your email message falls down.
Test special offers. Test the effectiveness of your email campaign by creating special, email-only offers. You can even use this tactic to test a number of special offers just by dividing your list into groups. Give one group 25% off a purchase of 2 items, while the other group gets a “buy-one-get-one-half off” promotion. They both amount to the same thing, and you can test which language is more effective.
If you’d like more information about email marketing or how you can pull together an effective marketing strategy, please contact me at eileen@juliesoceancom or call me at (734) 961-0408.
Photo Credit: Jayanta Behera , via FreeImages.com