Is your business doing email marketing well?
Email marketing often offers the magical allure of thousands of potential customers, just a click away. All the common sense we have as consumers of email (way too much email…) can easily go out of the window when you’re the one sending it out. So here’s our top 5 tips on how to make people think better of your company when it receives your email – and how to not be one of those dreadful spammers.
1. A good quality list = opted in receivers
Someone offering you 5,000 opted-in email addresses of your target audience? At a low, low price? Sounds too good to be true – because it is. Don’t buy email lists, they’re a waste of money. Build your own list over time – past prospects, current customers, networking contacts – and make sure anyone you add to your list has given you the permission to email them. Be a great company that always has something valuable to offer – not just special offers, but great customer service, valuable new information, well-crafted opinion and thoughtful advice, and people will want to hear more from you.
2. Don’t blast – segment
Even with a list of people who are happy to hear from you, not everyone will be interested in hearing the same thing. When you add people to your list, have a way of defining them so that you can segment easily. Lapsed customers, new customers, high value customers, high volume customers, people who bought A, people who bought B – and don’t be tempted to do everything in one email, every time.
3. Craft your email subject line
We all know what a spam email sounds like – use that common sense when writing your email subject. It’s the first thing your audience will see and how they’ll decide if they’ll open the email. For sales emails, make sure you refer to any discount or special offer; for regular newsletters keep it simple and factual.
4. Don’t rely on images
A lot of people open email on smartphones – which usually block images by default. If your email is one large jpeg, or lots of product photos, the email is going to look pretty bare – and irrelevant – to a lot of your audience. They won’t take any action – apart from subscribing.
5. Test, test test
Gmail treats email very differently to Outlook, which is very different to Apple Mail. And then there are Android devices and iPhones. A good quality email marketing system will have allow you to test in various inboxes, take your time to make these checks and make alterations accordingly. Usually, simple emails work better – both for their technical readability in the inbox, and for the people who read them.
There are many reasons that email marketing can help your business – and many ways to get it wrong. If you are starting out on email marketing, or aren’t getting results from your current campaigns, give the Aubergine team a call on 01525 373020 or email us using [email protected]