Is this the End of Email Marketing?
Social media marketing may be the buzz word in online marketing these days. Does this mean email marketing is a thing of the past? Do we need to adapt and re-think the way we use email marketing as businesses?
In my opinion, email marketing is still one of the most effective marketing tactics today when you consider return on investment (ROI). You just need to ensure you are using email marketing in an effective manner so you don’t frustrate your database and do more harm than good to your business. Don’t try to ‘sell’ every time, try to provide valuable, interesting information for your target market and build a relationship.
If you are just starting online with your business, you should be looking for ways to capture the details of your prospects for further marketing. In the early days, you may choose to follow up each and every lead personally with a phone call however, as the volume of leads increase (if your website is doing what it should) this may not be possible. That’s when email marketing becomes a great strategy for reaching the masses, quickly and cost effectively.
If you are already implementing email marketing but are not seeing the results you intended, the following tactics may help increase its effectiveness. Here are three of the best strategies for email marketing that will work in any small business. These have been proven time and time again for a broad range of businesses.
Create Variety in Your Emailed Topics
You do not need to focus on just your products or services when you send out emails. Create variety by infusing other topics relevant to your niche. Some marketers only send out company info and product descriptions… how boring. Occasionally you can and should market your products and services, just don’t overdo it. Your database will tell you if you are overdoing it, just watch the unsubscribe numbers and see for yourself.
Be informative. Provide diverse topics to your target audience. Make sure they are relevant and interesting for your target audience. Look into your niche and the common concerns they share and address these needs.
Keep a Balance in Your Email Sending Frequency
People sign up for email subscriptions because they are looking for information that is relevant to their interests, issues and concerns. Sending too much information can be overwhelming, sending not enough won’t create a meaningful connection. Maintain a balance in the frequency of your emails. Sending emails everyday is annoying and might result in your messages being marked as spam. This is a sure-fire way of causing more harm than good to your business. Annoyance is what will make you lose your prospects. For some businesses, once a week will be best, for others once a month. It’s a matter of fine tuning what works best for your business and sticking with it.
Choose Your Title Carefully
There are words that you should avoid because they are likely to be considered spam resulting in your email being sent to the junk folder. These words include free, sale and buy. Any sex related words will also cause problems. I once did an email marketing campaign for a customer who used the word ‘Sexy’ in the title. His products and services were nothing to do with sex, he was simply using it as a catchy word to describe a product. We suspected it would cause problems in delivery however the client wanted to go ahead anyway. The delivery rates were down significantly however it was a great experiment to see how spam filters would treat it.
