Getting the Most Out of Email Marketing for Your Business
As a modern business owner, you’re likely taking several steps to promote yourself and your company online. You may already be using email to communicate with your current and potential customers. Whether you have experience in the field or not, you can make email marketing a powerful asset for your business with just a few easy suggestions. The ones provided here will get you off to a great start.
Begin by learning the difference between email marketing and spam. Spam is unsolicited; marketing messages are sent to readers who have explicitly signed up to receive them. This is the narrowest distinction between the two. You can do a lot more to distance your marketing from spam, as you’re about to discover.
Never make it difficult for subscribers to get off of your email list. You might not want to think about losing readers, but keep in mind that an opt-out is not necessarily the end of the relationship between you and a potential customer. If you make it tough to cancel a subscription, though, you’ll ensure that your former reader leaves with a low opinion of you and your business. Avoid this by providing prominent opt-out links and instructions in every message you send.
The best way to keep readers from thinking of you as a spammer is to give them information they’re happy to receive. Useful information, great deals, and helpful content will all ensure that your messages get opened and read carefully, instead of being tossed right into the trash folder.
Another step you can take to increase the percentage of readers who take the time to look at your messages is to stick with short, well-crafted subject lines. Remember that many readers’ inboxes will truncate your subject line, so make it as direct as possible. Don’t waste space jamming your business’s name into the subject; there’s a whole separate “from” column to tell your readers who sent them what.
As you can no doubt imagine, your marketing emails are going to include links to your website. Maximize the value of these links by tailoring the content they lead to. Don’t just send readers to a product page or, worse, to your front page; build a landing page that continues the marketing effort started by your email.
Use the power of automation to make your email marketing more effective. Simple, free programs can make it easy to perform special email list management tasks that would be incredibly labor-intensive without them. For example, wouldn’t it be great to send a special anniversary message to each subscriber after they’ve been with you for six months? This is easy to set up with the right software.
Finally, keep your email marketing fresh by trying out new ideas. A great way to keep up with the latest and greatest in email marketing is to subscribe to your competitors’ mailing lists. This will introduce you to new marketing strategies and also let you see possible openings where you can provide a unique service. It takes just moments to review the latest messages from other businesses in your field, and you’ll be vastly better-informed as a result.
Running a 21st century business is all about keeping up with technology and keeping up with your customers. Email marketing is an effective, time-tested tool you can use to do this. More self-education and experience will turn you into an outstanding email marketer, but you can get started right away using the advice you’ve just reviewed.