The massive popularity of social media seems to have overshadowed older marketing techniques such as email marketing. Still, email marketing continues to work and answer to specific niches. Consider this: With the noise of social media (posts, tweets, likes and status updates), email has become a place of safety and reliability amid the chaos.
Come to think of it, the Internet didn’t really kill print as printed marketing materials are still all over. For businesses of varying sizes and industries, email marketing campaign remains relevant for a number of reasons. Foremost being, its effectiveness in building strong relationships. Social media is personal and interactive but it’s also public. With email marketing, you are communicating privately and directly with a person. Email marketing is also an effective method to stay in touch with clients and retain them by sending special promotions and the like.
When planning your email marketing campaign, consider these basic tips:
Know your audience.
Knowing your audience is key to a successful email marketing campaign. Before you can effectively deliver a marketing message, you need to know who your target market is. Conduct a thorough market research. And based on this, learn how to engage your readers emotionally.
You can start by creating a permission-based list. In exchange for contact info, you can offer customers something of value like a free seminar or sample product/service. When you gather info, ask only for what you really need. Asking unnecessary ones turns off people and may keep them from signing up. Offer an unsubscribe option in your email campaign. Spam can be damaging to a company’s reputation.
Create your message.
In a marketing campaign, email is highly effective in increasing revenue, generating leads, strengthening customer relationships, increasing website traffic and building brand awareness. Hence, your email marketing campaign would require an interesting message that offers value to your target market. The length of your message should be just right. The more frequent your emails, the shorter your message should be. Keep it personal and informal. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes and write like you’re having a casual conversation. Appeal to your customers’ interests and hobbies and watch how responsive they become.
Use the right format.
You have the email marketing message finalized. Now, you need to present it in the right manner. Email marketing using HTML and rich media messages (audio, video, animation) are proven to generate high response rates. Still, it’s important to have a text version for people who prefer it more. Format strategically using bullet points and a lot of white space. You may want to include a hyperlinked table of contents so readers can easily click or scroll right to the section they want to read.
Gather measurable results.
An important part of your email marketing campaign is gathering measurable results through trackable links and real-time reports. When you can measure the results of your email marketing efforts, you can understand what works and what does not. This gives you a chance to improve your current and next campaigns for more success rates. For example, you can use different subject lines, body copy, and graphic design and later on, observe which has the best response rates. Analyze results and devise new ways of providing value to customers and members.
These are some of the basic tips you can use for your email marketing campaign to produce positive results. For being more personalized and cost-effective, email is still a solid method to market to small businesses and large corporations.