Email marketing is one of the most innovative ways that you can market your wares to people who are likely to buy them. It does, however, take some know-how to build an effective email list. This article will show you some things you can do that will help you be successful with email marketing.
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.
Do you want to be known as a spammer? Your emails could be flagged as spam if they are sent to customers that didn’t want to receive them. This is terrible for your business’s reputation and might even get your IP address blocked by some ISPs.
Slowly build your contact list. Start with those who have already appreciated what you offer and then move on to areas where you can engage your prospects. It can take a while to pick whom should be receiving your emails, but it’ll be worth it in the end to build a reliable contact list.
Be predictable in your emails. Send them on a specific schedule. Make sure you send something at least monthly, this will help keep your customers interested. If you can send emails on or two times a week, that is even better. Test out which days give your site the best responses, and then use these days as your normal days to send emails.
Choose to install a double opt-in feature to make sure that the person signing up for your emails is truly interested. This may seem like a lot, but it guarantees that the person is interested in receiving emails, so it eliminates the chances that you or your email service provider gets into any trouble.
Your email marketing campaign will be more effective if you make it easy for customers to unsubscribe. This may seem paradoxical, but people will tend to trust you more if you make them feel as if they are in control. Post the unsubscribe link in an obvious place so they can find it easily.
You should send your emails as a plain text every once in a while instead of always sending them in HTML format. This gives things a more personal touch and helps the subscriber feel that you are trying to connect. Do not use it too much though because then you may be seen as being too unprofessional.
Find out who your competitors are and sign up to their emails. You will be able to see what content, they are sending to their subscribers and figure out what aspects to use and which to stay away from. Just be sure not to steal their content, as this could constitute plagiarism.
Use colors and fonts that reflect your business and are easy to view. Even if the content is interesting, difficult to read fonts and harsh colors can cause some customers to reject the email, and possibly future ones as well. Use the same color scheme and fonts for all of your emails.
Try to make it as easy as possible for customers to unsubscribe from your emails. By not making it simple, they will feel like you are being too pushy and may be turned off from your product or business. Give them the option to opt out from some of your emails or all of them.
Make it easy to unsubscribe. Make the unsubscribe link clearly visible in your email, allowing someone to stop getting email marketing. This way you are less likely to get reported for sending spam. Also, if someone has unsubscribed, don’t make the mistake of continuing to send them email: that is likely to cause them to complain.
Your email communications should have calls to action. Tell your audience what you expect from them. If you include links in your messages, clearly instruct your readers on how to use them, and make the links prominent and obvious. If necessary, these can be added to your messages at the beginning and the end.
When people opt-in to your email marketing list, you need to let them know what to expect up front. Tell subscribers how often they can expect to hear from you and what types of communications you will be sending them. If they are expecting the volume of mail you will be sending, they are less likely to get frustrated and unsubscribe.
Make your emails concise. No one wants to read through a number of paragraphs when several would have sufficed. People don’t have much time these days, and you could become persona non grata in their email boxes if you don’t appreciate the time crunch that most people have to deal with these days.
Develop a list that specifically targets your customer’s preferences and needs. You can accomplish this by encouraging your most loyal customers to convince their friends and contacts to sign up to your mailing list. If you make it out to seem that those who receive your mailing list also receive exclusive tips on your particular topic, then your mailing list will be more targeted while at the same time make your mailings appear to be more authoritative.
Include an audit memo on the follow-up emails that you send to your clients. Paste a link on your message that tells them to download this right now. The ending postscript could convince these clients that now is the time for them to experience success, and they can do so by following the link provided.
Now that you’ve read the entire article, you should have some good ideas of how to go about email marketing. Use the tips that you’ve just learned and start building a list right away. Keep learning about email marketing, and eventually you’ll have a huge list that will increase your customer base.
