Business owners are always trying to think of ways to attract new customers without spending a lot of money. Email marketing is one solution you should consider using. If you haven’t heard about this Internet marketing technique for growing your business, keep reading. The information in this article will get you started.
If you want your email marketing messages to be successful, make sure you have permission to send them. If you do not have permission from your recipients, the potential consequences can range from being added to spam filters all the way up to getting blacklisted by Internet service providers themselves.
Send out emails that correspond to your target audience. After you have a couple of people reading your emails, consider finding ways to get them to ask their friends to sign up. At the end of every email, provide a “subscribe” button and a “share” button so readers can pass along your information to friends. This method will have your list of email subscribers growing exponentially.
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.
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.
To make your emails look as professional as possible, invest a little thought in their design. Use a consistent layout, color scheme, and logo with all of your messages. This gives your subscribers the impression that they are hearing from a trustworthy, authoritative source. They will pay more attention and give your content more credence this way.
In addition to using email marketing, incorporate SMS marketing into your campaign. Have customers sign up for an SMS option and send them text messages when on the go. When these two methods are used together, you have a better chance of getting more customers to sign up for your product.
Focus on a single message per email you send out. Don’t try to cram a whole bunch of topics into a single email.Too much information can lead to the recipient not reading over everything carefully and possibly just tossing the message. Have an informative4 subject line and the gist of your topic in the email to get them to read it.
Occasionally mix your format up to add personality. If you send out regular emails in HTML, consider doing them in just plain text format every now and then. Your customers will pay attention to this slightly different email because you might have chosen a different format for an important announcement.
Try to secure at least the first name of individuals during the process. 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.
Emphasize the benefits of your product or service whenever possible. Subscribers will want to know what’s in it for them, so tell them–in the subject line, in your links, and in your content. Your subscribers will be much more interested in your message if they feel that it can help them in some way.
Before sending any promotional emails to customers or potential customers, be sure to get their permission for contact. Email is a powerful tool, and consumers hate when it is misused. Any email contact that isn’t initiated by the consumer feels to them like spam. Your customers must agree to receive additional emails from you, even if they have made purchases in the past.
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.
Keep your important aspects of your messages “above the fold.” This “fold” refers to the area that is previewed in an email program. Anything that is important should be arranged with this “fold” in mind. Many readers use these to preview a message before deciding to open it. Keep anything important within this area so that they don’t have to scroll to find it.
If one of your customers is not happy with your products or services, you could send a follow-up email to this person that apologizes to them. Include a link on the email that tells this person to click on it in order to listen to the apology with their own ears. The concluding postscript could inform them that they can get a free sample by clicking on the provided link.
Have an exit strategy for customers that stop responding to your mailings. If a customer is no longer interested in the products you have to sell, they’re going to be irritated and even angered by continued contact. Determine a number of messages or a length of time that you’ll keep sending messages, then if the customer doesn’t respond, remove them from your mailing list.
As you could see, any type of business could use email marketing in order to get more consumers without paying high expenses to other marketing companies. Considering how cheap this method is, there really is no reason why you should not use email marketing! Use the tips you’ve found here to build your own successful campaign.
