Email marketing is an effective way to keep in touch with
your existing customers, prospects, and networking contacts. When partnered
with a strong inbound marketing program (including local SEO and social media),
it's a great tool to generate new leads and revenue, thereby growing your
business.
However, in order to be as powerful as it can be, you'll want to design your email marketing campaign in such a way that it 1) gets through the spam and junk filters of your recipients, 2) is compelling enough to be opened and read, and 3) incites action and qualifies a lead (i.e., a phone call or email reply).
However, in order to be as powerful as it can be, you'll want to design your email marketing campaign in such a way that it 1) gets through the spam and junk filters of your recipients, 2) is compelling enough to be opened and read, and 3) incites action and qualifies a lead (i.e., a phone call or email reply).
Below are seven easy steps you'll need to follow to make
your email marketing campaign a success:
7 Easy Steps for Successful Email Marketing Campaigns
Be specific. Know your target audience for each list segment
and craft your message accordingly. Decide what action you want each list
segment to take. Some possible techniques might be to offer a promotion for a
product or service, to announce a new product or service, or to drive traffic
to your website (by way of a blog or article, for example).
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2. Choose an email marketing provider.
It's important to research a bit here. If you can, talk to
other businesses you know to find out who they're using and the results they've
seen. There are several reputable companies, three of which are: AWeber, ConvertKit,
and MailChimp.
3. Develop an "opt-in" technique
Many email marketing providers will require that all of your
contacts have opted in. This simply means that the contact gives you permission
to send them emails by signing up in some fashion and confirming their email
address. Having contacts opt-in not only increases your chances that your email
will be opened and read, but it's a best practice to avoid having unsolicited
emails discarded or reported as spam to your email marketing provider. You can
include a sign-in form link on all outgoing business emails, add links to a
sign-up form to all electronic documents you send to customers, or include an
email sign-up form on each web page.
4. Create a new email database or "scrub" an
existing one.
If you're like most businesses setting up an email marketing
list, you likely have a few with expired information. Take the time to update
existing information and scrub expired listings from your database. There are
online tools, such as Verify-Email.org and VerifyEmailAddress.org, that will
verify that your email addresses are active.
5. Compose compelling copy that's useful to your
audience.
Keep the design simple and uncluttered. Keep graphics to a
minimum (about 20% of your email) and write relevant and meaningful copy in
easy-to-read fonts and standard font sizes.
6. Create a standout subject line.
This is where the rubber meets the road. It needs to be
attention-grabbing to get the reader to open the email. Your subject line
should include no more than 50 characters and should include your company name.
In order to minimize the chances of your email ending up labelled as spam,
avoid words such as "free", "call now", or
"urgent". You could consider segmenting the mailing list and testing
different subject lines to see what delivers the better open rate.
7. Implement a system to track results
Your email provider should have a "dashboard" for
each campaign that will allow you to view the following (among other
statistics):
· Received/open rate
· Click-through rate
It's vital that you develop a way to follow up with those
recipients who open and click through, so that those leads don't fall through
the cracks!
So, now you know the benefits of email marketing, the power
of a well-designed email marketing strategy, and the steps to create and
execute an effective email marketing campaign. All email marketing efforts
should be consistent with a well-planned marketing strategy, and they should be
done frequently to attract attention with the objective of lead generation -
getting the reader to take action.
Get The Complete Guide to Email Marketing sent straight to
your inbox - for free – click here.
By Lynn Pechinski - Article Source: EzineArticles.com/9103943
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