Despite the dramatic increase of new platforms for marketing your product, email marketing campaigns are still one of the highest rating methods available. But getting started can be difficult if you do not know what to do. What makes a successful email marketing campaign? Let’s take a look..
Why is using Email Marketing important?
Email marketing is one of the leading ways to reach people; it is even a competition runner with social media. Millions of people all around the world have an email account and check it on a daily basis. Use this fact to your advantage; when people receive your emails, you are gaining many potential buyers.
Gathering Email Addresses
To be successful with email marketing campaigns you have to acquire as many email addresses as possible. This can be done in many different ways using various methods that will be detailed in the next section. Beyond that there are several things to remember. One of those things is that the location of your sign-up box can make you or break you. The side bar of your landing page is the most logical and effective place to put your sign-up box; it is visible, easily accessible, and out of the way. Some marketers use a pop-up lightbox on their landing page with great results, but it can also cause the opposite outcome if website visitors find it to be nothing but a bother.
Getting people to Sign-up For Emails
There are several different ways to get people to sign up for your email list. One of those ways is to ask for their email address and offer something in return. Offer special deals, promotions, or freebies to people who sign-up for your email list. This method is rated in the top five ways of getting new email addresses. Offering to send news updates about your product or service will also gain quite a few subscribers because people often find it to be a very arduous task to go to a company’s website everyday looking for news. Another way to gain sign-ups is to use your existing contact list of friends, colleges, coworkers, and customers. Do not, however, just place these people on your newsletter mailing list; if you do you will end up on quite a few spam lists.
Instead, email these contacts a link to your squeeze page so that they can sign-up for your newsletter if they choose. If they like your newsletter after they sign-up it is highly likely that they will in turn share the squeeze page link with others. Another sign-up tool is a “members only” area. Generate attractive content to go into this area and require a sign-up for people to be able to access it. On the other hand, you can limit the use of a free tool so that people will have to sign-up if they want to keep using it. Requiring people to give their email address to receive the results of a quiz or test is another way to gain many addresses.
Pick your Content
Picking your content and what to write can be one of the hardest parts of email marketing, but it does not have to be. Start by analyzing what you want people to know – are you pitching a sale, announcing a promotion or other news, giving tips and advice, or are you welcoming newcomers? After you know what it is that you are trying to convey, think about what would get you interested if you were on the receiving end and how the information pertains to your audience. Then all you have to do is write it out, add a few images and headers, arrange the layout to be eye-catching and intriguing, and click send.
Text to Image Ratio
Deciding on a text-to-image ratio can be a bit tricky. The text is very important because it contains all of the information that you want your readers to have. Likewise, the images are of great importance; a well-placed and wisely chosen image will draw the eye and get readers to look at that section of the email when they would have otherwise skipped over it. Be careful that you do not go overboard with images. While they are important, too many of them will distract the reader from the overall message of the email.
Autoresponders vs. Broadcasts
There are two types of marketing emails, autoresponders and broadcast messages. They are both necessary for a successful email campaign; however, you must use each one at the appropriate time and place to truly be effective. An autoresponder message is great to use with sign-ups and other repeated actions. This type of email is always written in advance and then set-up on a given schedule to be sent out a specified times, such as when someone first signs-up for your newsletter, one month afterwards, and so on. This saves you the trouble of having to constantly re-write the same thing over and over again to each new subscriber, and it saves you from having to remember to send it. A broadcast message can be written in advance or sent immediately and they can be a recurring thing or a one-time deal. This type of message is more versatile than autoresponders, but it takes more time.
No Spamming
The definition of spam is “unsolicited commercial bulk email,” however there are many different ways to end up on a spam list. One of those ways is by being overly pushy with sales pitches in your emails as people do not respond well to this. The definition of “too pushy” varies from person to person, so there is no definitive way to make everyone happy. You should still keep this in mind when writing your emails. Check them yourself and ask one or two team members to check them as well. This will give you other people’s opinions before you send the email.
Email Marketing Services
Using an email marketing service is highly recommended for several important reasons. First of all, when you get new sign-ups there has to be a confirmation process. You will also need a way for people to unsubscribe from your email list. This is a scary thing to think about, but some people do end up changing their minds and will be very unhappy if there is no unsubscribe option. Email marketing services also help out with making sure that your emails are compliant with spam laws and other marketing email laws, rules, and regulations. Most services also provide back-ups for your email list, so if something happens to your system you do not lose your list. Another benefit that email marketing services provide is the gathering of data to determine how effective your emails are regarding open rates, subject lines, and other variables.
As a recap, these tips are fairly simple to apply and do not require an extreme amount of time:
1) Just remember to start by acquiring as many email addresses as possible for your email list.
2) Use various techniques to gain email addresses, make your sign-up available on your website landing page, your social media pages, and your squeeze page.
3) Pick the content that you want to use in your emails, determine what it is you want to say and how you want your customers and potential customers to read it.
4) Do not underestimate images, choose them carefully and wisely, take the time to place them strategically but do not over use them.
5) Debate the necessity of using both autoresponse emails and broadcast emails.
6) Be very careful to keep your emails within a certain standard to keep them from being marked as spam.
7) Also, find a great email marketing service to help you keep up with the campaign and all of its factors.
This is a guest blog post written by Asher Elran, who is a practical software engineer and a marketing specialist. CEO at Dynamic Search and founder of Web Ethics.
