Email marketing has opened up a whole new means of communication for businesses to reach their customers. Now businesses can potentially reach millions of people all over the world at a fraction of the cost of reaching them through the postal service. This article can help you learn more about email marketing and how you can use it for your business.
Only send marketing emails to people who have requested them. Messages sent to recipients who did not request them are at risk of being marked as spam. Your IP address could be blacklisted if there are complaints of spam and it could also give your business a bad rap.
To get people to opt-in and give permission for you to send email marketing messages to them, offer an incentive. Offer a discount or a coupon on one of your products or services. Include a whitepaper or newsletter about your niche or market. Give your prospect something in return for access to their inbox.
If you buy a list of emails to send to, check and make sure it is up to date. Sometimes lists for sail might match your target demographics but be woefully out of date. The number of addresses now defunct can be as high as 25% of the overall list.
Data mine your email list and bucket your audience into various segments based off of any profiling data you have. This will allow you to be more strategic with your messaging and effectively increase your chances of higher open and click through rates. Even if you don’t have profiling, look to geo-targeting. Various regions respond differently to different types of messaging.
Limit your email communications to once a week. Most likely, your subscribers receive dozens of emails every day. If you send too many emails, people will skip over them, and you won’t reap the benefit of your hard work.
To get the best results from your email marketing campaign, test your messages thoroughly before you send them. Do not just type up a quick message and blast it out to your subscriber list without checking it carefully first. Preview it in different email programs and on different platforms to make sure it will display properly for everyone.
You should get in touch with your subscribers at certain intervals and confirm with them that they are still interested in receiving emails from you. Most companies do this every nine months so that they can be sure that they are not being seen as an annoyance. This will also guarantee that the people on your email list have genuine interest and are not just taking up space.
Pay attention to the demographics within your subscriber base. See what content and links intrigued a particular segment of your audience, and then follow up with a new email to that subgroup. The boost in your response rate from peeling away the top layer will really surprise you, but in a delightful way.
Include calls to action when creating emails. Your subscribers should know exactly what you want them to do in each email you send out. If the email contains links, make them stand out and also provide instructions on how to use them. These messages can be repeated at the beginning and the end of your messages.
Stay away from including emails on your emailing database that have not been directly opted-in by the specific subscriber. If you pad your list using subscribers who haven’t specifically requested to receive your emails, you run the risk of alienating the email address owners, as well as your potential customers. Some email providers view these actions as spam and may terminate your service.
Rather than purchasing or renting a mailing list, build your own from the ground up. You can do this by including opt-in forms on your website, gathering business cards at conventions or other industry events, and encouraging your subscribers to share your emails with others, which can garner even more subscribers.
Offer a bonus, such as a coupon, discount code, or other freebie, in exchange for signing up for your email mailing list. People love receiving free things. An email address is low in value to the customer but high in value to you as a business. People will gladly trade their contact information in exchange for a 10% discount off their next purchase.
Concise subject lines are key. Short subject lines, particularly those with less than sixty characters, have a better chance to engage and entice readers than longer ones. If a long subject is unavoidable, include the most important words first so it will not become truncated.
Build your mailing list one person at a time. Start by asking your largest customers to sign up and recommend you to their friends. Word of mouth is the best form of recommendation and you will gain much more business this way as well as have a larger, targeted email list to market your products to.
Always obtain a customer’s permission before you start sending them emails. When you send unsolicited emails, you run the risk of being reported as a spammer, and your emails will probably head straight into the trash. Also, a lot of people will not want to get your emails and it may even prevent them from getting them. You might even be penalized by your providers if you are labelled as a spammer.
Learn what domain authentication is and then set it up. You want internet service providers to know that the messages you are sending are in fact coming from you. This seriously diminishes the chances you have of getting blocked and blacklisted, or your emails getting eaten up by spam filters at the server level.
A previously stated, email marketing has brought about an entire new world for businesses to communicate with their customers. Email marketing has so much potential if it is done correctly. This article provides information and tips to help you develop a email marketing plan and to harness that power for your own business.