The email is one of the greatest inventions of the internet age. By using a simple message, anyone can communicate with anyone else in a matter of seconds. This near instant communication makes it a great marketing tool. Here is a bit of advice that will show you how to harness the power of emails for marketing purposes.
Always seek permission before sending marketing emails to potential customers. Sending unsolicited emails will quickly have you labeled a spammer. Getting permission to send your messages doesn’t have to be hard; offer something valuable to your customers in exchange for the ability to email them, such as a discount, coupon, or other sign-up incentive.
If you are emailing potential customers, consider following up with some video clip. You could try inserting a line within your message that tells them to order now. The ending of the message could inform these people that they can become a customer immediately by clicking on the provided link.
It’s important to try different layouts to see which is most effective. The beginning of your emails should include new information and offers. Try using various formats to figure out which of them gets more responses. Once you determine the format that works for your customers, stick with it. Your customers will know what’s expected from both ends, as well as where to look when seeking out more information.
Keep your content current and variable; do not just repeatedly send out the same five messages repeatedly. If you want to keep people’s attention, there needs to be something fresh, or their attention will go elsewhere. If they wanted round the clock commercials, they would just stay at home watching home shopping channels. Even if some of them do that, give them something different when they check their inbox.
When you are building an effective email marketing campaign, you need to have the proper sign-up forms on your company website. Make sure you have them on every page, and also make sure that they are in the proper locations on your site pages. This is key to getting the customers to sign up.
Beware of including attachments to your email marketing! Mass emails with attachments are instantly suspected as spam by most spam filters. As well, these days many types of computer malware and viruses are carried in email attachments, and people are aware of this. Your email is in jeopardy of being immediately deleted when they see an attachment without even being read.
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!
Test sending your email marketing on different days of the week and at various times during the day. You’ll find that different times and dates will increase or decrease your open rates to your emails. Note the best time/day of the week mixtures and plan your most important email marketing campaigns to be released during those windows.
Your emails should be readable sans images. Many email providers disable images by default, and unless the user changes their settings, they will not be able to see any images you include. Because of this, any images you include in the emails that you send should also be followed by comprehensive text.
To improve your email reading rates, offer subscribers the option of seeing your newsletters in either plain text or HTML. Too many companies send their emails out in only one format, discouraging their less tech-savvy readers or alternately disappointing readers that expect a more dynamic presentation. Offering every newsletter in both formats makes it more accessible.
Build your own custom templates. Avoid just sending out generic emails, be creative with them. Try to get your messages to reflect aspects of your business’s branding, such as color palettes and fonts. If you include any images, make sure you include a link to a plain text version so that those with images disabled can read your messages.
Always make sure customers have a clear and concise way to opt out of emails at any time. They signed up with you because they wanted more information, and if at any time they wish to stop receiving that information, they should be able to opt out. It is only fair.
On your sign-up page, give your customers the option of providing their first name. Having their name to reference makes any further communication you have with them more personal and more likely to catch their attention. This will help your messages stand out from all of the spam messages that your subscribers may be used to receiving.
To increase the size of your mailing list, include simple ways for potential customers to opt in to receiving your emails. This function can be included on your website so that interested customers can receive updates, as they become available.
While extra graphics and other things that can easily be blocked by filters are unnecessary and detrimental to your campaign, your company logo does need to be included in order to make things’ consistent, familiar, and professional when you are in contact with prospective customers. Failure to do this will harm your email marketing campaign immensely.
Make certain that the ‘from’ field of your e-mails displays your name or your business in a manner that is easily recognizable. Many people determine whether they are going to read an e-mail based on the ‘from’ field. A lot of people are also wary of opening e-mails that are sent from places that they do not readily recognize due to the fact that e-mails can contain viruses.
Due to its speed and simplicity, the email is a great invention that allows people to communicate with little time or effort. Thanks to these attributes, emails have unlimited marketing potential. Hopefully, you will keep the advice from this article in mind so that you can use email marketing in the most effective manner.
