When you are trying to market your business, it can be hard to know which marketing techniques to focus on. Email marketing can be a strong, fundamental part of any marketing plan. Here are some useful email marketing tips to strengthen your overall marketing strategy, and to build your bottom line.
Consider using a template that allows for each recipient to receive a personalized message in the greeting. People respond more favorably to emails that address them personally, and are less likely to reject the message. This personalization is simple to accomplish, and will grow a greater relationship with your customers.
When you ask people to opt-in, let them know what to expect. Tell them what you will be sending and how often you will send it. People will be more likely to sign up if they know that you are not going to flood their inboxes with wordy emails that they have no intention of reading.
Use A/B testing to see which emails are successful and which ones aren’t. Split your mailing list into two parts at random. Send one version of your subject line to one half and another version to the other half. This way, you will be able to gain insight as to which subject lines will encourage the highest open rates. You will also see which subject lines people will skip over without reading.
Give customers the choice of getting a plain text version of your email marketing materials or a rich text version. Customers can choose the option they prefer when they sign up for your newsletter. Plain text versions don’t include graphics, so customers with slower connections or overactive spam filters might appreciate this option.
Capture the attention of your readers with the right subject line. You might want to se from 30 to 50 characters and create a sense of urgency. The subject line should give an indication of what the reader can expect once they open the email. Including an attractive incentive will increase the interest of recipients.
Email is a great marketing tool, but it is not an arena where the hard sell is appreciated. Never pressure your subscribers into buying. Put sales pitches at the tail end of your emails, especially if your readers signed up with expectations of informative content. Consider email as a tool to cultivate interest, not instant sales.
Make it easy for people to unsubscribe from your list. This might seem counter-productive since you don’t want your customers to lose interest and leave. However, if your customers aren’t interested in your newsletters anymore, they might get annoyed if they can’t easily unsubscribe. Provide a large button or link so that customers who have lost interest can find it without an extensive search.
It is important that your strategy is persistent. While you need to be persistent, it must be with the right customers or else it is not going to make that much of a difference. Using a persistent strategy with wrong customers just annoys them, and causes you to waste your time.
Do not take up permanent residence in your readers inboxes. Remember that they email for a number a reasons, from work to family. You are probably sharing that space with other marketers. Send out messages often enough to stay on their mental radar, but more than once a week is probably going to annoy them and backfire.
If you’d like your emails to feel more personal, try mixing up your format every so often. If you normally use HTML format for your email messages, use plain text format occasionally. When written with care, these can charm customers because the design is straightforward and personal and can appeal to their emotions.
To avoid complications resulting from being identified as a spammer, notify your ISP of your email marketing intentions in advance. If any unhappy reader ever reports you, this will give your ISP the head’s up that your marketing efforts are legitimate. Your ISP may also be able to suggest an upgraded account that eases your email marketing operations.
Automatically unsubscribe customers who don’t respond to your marketing materials after a certain number of emails. If your customers aren’t responding to your emails anymore, they most likely have lost interest in your newsletter but aren’t annoyed enough by it yet to unsubscribe. By unsubscribing them, you avoid generating bad feelings that could hurt your business.
You want your sales list to be highly targeted. This is done by getting your best customers, along with their contacts and friends, to receive your mailing list. If you give the impression that the mailing list is exclusive and only for a select few who are interested, your mailing list will be more targeted and your mailings will seem to carry more weight.
Once you have the format of your email marketing messages set up, you should check it on multiple email clients. In the same way that different browsers can display web pages differently, a strange email client may show your message in an unexpected fashion. Make use of all of the popular free email clients and ensure that your message is going to appear properly on them.
Make sure that the call to action in your messages is crystal clear. Featuring this element prominently dramatically increases the chances of a reader clicking on it and following through to your landing page. Even if they do not on a particular message, it will prevent them from getting soured on a jumbled message that does not seem to have a focal point.
Email marketing can be an effective, smart way to promote your business. You have to know what to do. Just apply the tips laid out here so your email marketing plan goes well. Learn as much as you can about email marketing so that you only improve as your business grows.
