While in the opt-in process, be sure to ask for the names of your customers, especially their first name. This allows you to say hello to them in a personal manner each time you email them, helping them to feel at ease as soon as they begin to read. Your emails will be different from other emails and your recipient will feel less anonymous.
Use A/B testing to test subject line variations. Send half of your messages with one subject, and half with the other. This way, you will be able to gain insight as to which subject lines will encourage the highest open rates. You will also see which subject lines people will skip over without reading.
The messages you send need to be unique and emphasize a particular idea. Customers are much more likely to respond positively to emails that feel personal and are not bland. If your message is sent by the President, CEO or other company bigwig, it will have a bigger impact on your customers.
It’s important to try different layouts to see which is most effective. To make sure it gets the most attention, important information should always be in the top portion of your emails. However, it is important to experiment with different formats to see which ones are most effective. When you know which format works the best, stick with it. This will ensure your customers will know what they are getting from your emails and where to go when they need more information.
Write an interesting subject line for your emails. The subject line needs to catch the attention of your potential customers to increase the likelihood that they will open and read it. An email that has a suspicious or just plain boring subject line will likely be deleted without being opened.
Branding is something that extends throughout your business, even down to email marketing. Whatever distinctive design elements and styles your company already uses, such as logos, fonts, and color schemes, should be incorporated into the emails you send out, too. This brand recognition will create a more professional appearance.
Practice consistency. Always make use of the same company color and logo in your email. Use easy-to-read fonts for text-based information. After sending a few messages, individuals will recognize your email in their box and they will pay attention. In email marketing, familiarity is a key aspect.
Always obtain permission before you begin sending emails to someone. If you send emails without permission, it might be considered spam. Doing so can hurt your reputation or even get you an ISP block.
Email marketing is a great tool for selling your product, but only if you keep sales in mind. Your emails should bring readers a bit closer to actually buying. Announcing special offers, debuting new products, and revealing new information about existing products are just a few of the tactics you can use to build this momentum.
The first commandment of email marketing is to never send unsolicited messages. Messages sent to recipients who did not request them are at risk of being marked as spam. This not only negatively impacts your reputation with your customer, it puts your business at risk of being blocked by your ISP for being in violation of their spam policies.
Show your consumers that you give importance to their time by sending them emails containing worthwhile information. Don’t take advantage of their trust or talk down to them with obvious pleas for their sales. Try to add a solution for an everyday problem, an interesting way to use products or information about special promotions in your emails.
Be considerate of your consumers and always ask for their permission before adding them to your company’s email list. If you do not, your emails will be viewed as spam. You will quickly lose subscribers and be banished to the junk mail pile. Your email host can even drop your service if enough people complain about your email spam.
You may want to send messages without images. While graphics can provide a nice touch, they also increase the time it takes your message to load–if the graphics themselves load at all. Remember that some people on your list have slow internet connections and older computers. Try and focus more on the quality of your content rather than creating pretty images. If you keep these guidelines in mind, more people will read your emails.
Put many links to your subscription form on your website, but don’t cram it down visitors throats. Tell customers about the benefits of opting into your list and make it clear that their personal information will never be sold. Your success in attaining customer information has a direct bearing on the success you can achieve with your email marketing campaign.
One way to improve an email marketing campaign is to organically build a list. This means to avoid just buying some random email listing which may or may not have people included who would be interested in your company. Instead, collect the information yourself and create a list that is specific to your business.
Ask for feedback from your subscribers. You can send emails as frequently as you want, but you can’t take comfort in your success until you’re sure your subscribers like what they see. Ask questions about how they would make your emails different and what they enjoy about them. When you listen to your subscribers, they will be more likely to stay loyal and buy from you.
Make your email messages as personalized as possible, and you can make recipients feel special. By making the email seem personalized, and less like a form letter, the recipient is less likely to ignore it. As easy as it is to add in their name, go even further. You should have the information about why, when and where they signed up. Make use of those facts when you draft your messages.
The above should give you a better understanding of how email marketing works and how you can benefit from it. Go on and use these tips and you will soon see increased traffic to your site.