6 June 2014

15 Top Tips For Successful Email Marketing Campaigns

Email marketing (also known as E-Marketing) is sending promotional messages about your company via email. It is an effective alternative marketing method when compared with postal campaigns. There is no print or delivery cost for E-Marketing,

which can be substantial when trying to reach high numbers of customers by post.  What’s more – an E-Marketing campaign’s success can be measured very accurately with analytical software, which means you can have total awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of your promotion and whether anyone is bothering to even open the email.  You can also measure the exact ROI by ’tracking to basket’ or by enquiry if applicable.

Don’t Break The Law

It is important these days to ensure you are compliant to the latest laws regarding SPAM. For instance in the UK you must have an ‘opt in’ (permission) from the recipient to contact them with your marketing messages. The customer on your database must have agreed to be there and to have consciously decided they want to know about your marketing offers. Gone are the days of adding randomly sourced email addresses to a marketing database because you want them to be on it – whether they have awareness of your brand or not.

Repeat – Not Fade Away

For this reason E-marketing suits promotions aiming to secure repeat business, especially. You’ll find in the checkout area of many online shops a ‘Would you like to subscribe to our newsletter for news of promotions’ tick box.

Email marketing can also cross over with Content Marketing, where the newsletter you send out to customers offers insight, useful information or practical advice, so the reader has a good reason to open the newsletter and (if you’ve got it right) look forward to it. Brands have to fight for consumer loyalty and a regularly delivered newsletter is one way to achieve this aim.

15 Tips For Creating An E-Marketing Campaign

1. Select the right E-Marketing software. There is a huge choice of software – free and paid for – but it’s important to get the right one for your business.  If you need help do contact Varn.
2. When offering an emailed newsletter or update on promotional offers, state that the details supplied by the consumer will not be sold or given to third parties.
3. Offer the email service to people who already view your website, or buy from you.
4. Personalise the message – make sure the recipient’s name is in the copy at least.
5. Test the email out across multiple platforms with office colleagues if possible. Get feedback on impressions and conversion rates before committing to the campaign.
6. Make sure you have offered your customer something in return for their sign-up to the database. This could be as simple as a pledge to give them great advice in a newsletter.
7. The Subject line of your email is very important. Be sure to think hard about the words you put in here. Be enticing and not too obvious. Spam filters may select your message for the Junk folder if you make it too sales orientated with words like ‘offer’ or ‘promotion’. Sometimes it is good to have an open question like, ‘Want to know the best tips for E-Marketing?’
8. Create coupons or vouchers for offers which can only be accessed by having a subscription.
9. Add great content so when someone opens the email they will be rewarded. With the right software this can be video, editorial features, guidelines, images – anything that makes the experience enjoyable and worthwhile. A word of warning though – emails normally won’t automatically download images so make sure the copy is separated from the images and the image alone is not the intro to the email.
10. Write personably – not formally. Be friendly, as if talking within a club and not overly corporate.
11. Make sure the website homepage or any offer is one click away on your email.
12. Be accessible and have full contact details visible.
13. Do not overdo your frequency of emailing. Too many emails from a business will make people think you are filling up their inbox and may provoke them to unsubscribe.
14. Make sure you have the important bits of the message summarised at the top of the email and the call to action at the bottom.
15. Monitor and assess each campaign for its open rate, bounce rate, click through rate, referral rate and unsubscribe rate. It’s worth taking the time to fine tune your campaigns so you know they are what your audience wants.

The good news is there are many easy-to-use software packages available that make the process of Email marketing simple to get right. Varn has affiliated partners who specialise in E-Marketing and we can guide you through the most effective E-Marketing strategies to ensure you get the right message across to your customers. Contact us for more information on how E-Marketing can benefit your business.