How long has it been since you last checked your email? Most people tend to check their email a few times a day. When you run a business, there’s no easier way to reach out to your target audience than email. The follow tips detail some of the best email marketing strategies developed to date.
Celebrate your subscribers’ birthdays with a congratulatory message. Allow your subscribers to list their birthday on their sign-up forms if they wish, so that you can set your email program to automatically wish them a happy birthday. This can make customers feel appreciated, especially if your greeting has a coupon included with it.
No business or website wants to be accused of spamming. Take every precaution you can to protect your company’s integrity. You can do this by adding an opt-in procedure. Providing an opt-in option on your website will make subscribers confirm their interest in receiving emails from you. You should put two links into the email, one that allows them to confirm and the other that allows them to refute their subscription. This security measure will give you more credibility and you will have a proof that people agreed to receiving your emails.
Make sure that people actually want to receive emails from you by using a double opt-in strategy. Although that may seem like overkill, it ensures that the individual truly wants your emails and reduces the likelihood that you will get in trouble for sending spam.
Every email you send should have a convenient link that allows them to opt out of receiving further messages. You do have to pay for email marketing, but it is cheap. Not only can being considered a spammer hurt your business, but you could even be blocked by your provider.
If you choose to use an opt-out link within your emails, it is important to fulfill the wishes of those who wish to do so. Continual emails to a customer who has opted out, may cause them to feel disrespected.
You must be persistent where it counts. While persistence is key, you should also make sure that you’re targeting the right customers, or it won’t matter much in the long run. Reaching out to an audience that is not appreciative of your efforts will be a waste of everyone’s valuable time.
Craft one message that’s clear in every email. This is important, so you don’t bore or overwhelm your customers by the content you are presenting. Build one clear, concise point for each email. Your customers will appreciate not being weighed down with extraneous information.
Keep subject lines to a minimum of 60 characters. Lots of email clients will just shorten subjects that are greater than this length. Other clients simply can not display any more characters. Regardless of this, your subscriber is likely to only require 60 characters to make a very quick judgement on reading your message or deleting it.
Don’t email without first asking if it’s ok. When you email your customers without asking them, they may think you are a spammer and not read them. Your customers could opt out of your mailing list, but an even worse scenario is if they report you as a spammer and you end up blacklisted.
Allow your readers who visit your website many opportunities to opt-in but avoid any pressure tactics to subscribe. Reassure customers that you won’t sell their email addresses, and point out the advantages of signing up. You need to have your customer’s information in order to be successful at email marketing.
Do not send emails out without having the recipient grant their permission. Nobody wants to have emails that are cluttering their email inbox that they did not expect. Engaging in this behavior can have a negative effect on your business. Get off on a good note by marketing to those that want to hear from you.
Test your emails across a variety of platforms for the most effective campaigns. Once you have perfected your materials, test them using all major browsers, various email clients and different operating systems, including Linux. Your message may look great when viewed through your Gmail account, but it might not look so hot to a Mac user using their ISP provided email client.
Keep the emails you send consistent with your existing branding conventions. Your logo and color scheme should be consistently used in all of your emails. Brand familiarity and recognition are an important key to successfully marketing any business.
Holidays are an important consideration when it comes to email marketing plans. Create the year’s business strategy with holiday and event promotions in mind. Build relevant campaigns with retail holidays like Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas in mind. It’s possible to boost your sales a bit by doing a little extra marketing during slower times throughout the year.
Use few graphics when creating email marketing programs. Some email servers block graphics, so avoid graphics to get your message across more effectively. Some people do not have the proper settings to open graphic heavy e-mails.
In order to better your email marketing plan, consider joining emails with social network sites, including Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Give your customers a way to share your message with their friends, and you can quickly grow your email list and get more people interested in what you have to offer.
For the most optimum results, only communicate through email with customers who have authorized you to do so. When you send emails to people who haven’t personally sent you emails you give them more of a reason to block all emails coming from you. Your email provider, which often is your own website host, could kick you off their servers if they receive continual complaints about your spam.
Email marketing can be used as an effective way to keep in touch with those you do business with. Use the information in the article you went over when creating an email marketing campaign and you will see it do well. Successfully promoting your business is simple and very achievable if you use the right tools, and email marketing is one of best.
