Everyone knows that in this day and age, content is the name of the game in marketing. Everything revolves around engagement. It’s all about networking and building personal relationships with your consumers.
Prior to the social media revolution, businesses already incorporate email marketing to their strategy and continue to do so—a strong testimony on how an effective email marketing campaign can increase business leads. In fact, 77% of customers said that they prefer to receive permission-based marketing communications through email.
This is most especially important for small businesses that already have a regular customer base in areas where they operate. Hands-on business owners know the value of creating a strong relationship with their customers. Simply put, happy customers continue patronizing products and services that they’ve had pleasant experiences with.
However, as a business owner, you can’t just rely on your consumers’ positive experience to keep them loyal. You must think of different ways to keep them coming back and email marketing provides you with a digital venue to keep in touch with your customers on a regular basis. Here are a few tips on how to run a successful email marketing campaign.
Develop a segmented list
This is the most important aspect of email marketing. Email addresses of customers is a valuable currency for your business. Keeping a segmented list will allow you to identify what kind of content to deliver to each group.
Perhaps you have a group of people who have signed-up for your free trial? Your goal is to convert them to become paying customers, hence your email marketing should be customized to address that goal. Another email group that you many have are existing customers which you’d like to keep happy by continually enticing them with offers, promos and valuable information. Having segmented lists will allow you to properly develop content for each customer groups.
Content is King
Now that you have a good database, the next step is to develop the content. A catchy, punchy and engaging email content is important. As advertising great, David Ogilvy puts it, “You can’t bore people into buying your product. You can only interest them.”
Try to avoid using spammy headlines such as “Free” or “Giveaway” as email providers are sensitive to these words and immediately send such emails to the spam folder.
The body of your email should be short, brief and engaging. We recommend infusing your content with great call-to-actions such as offering a discount for signing up or referring a friend.
Schedule your Email Campaigns
Even if a person completely patronizes your brand, they wouldn’t want to get email newsletters from you on a day-to-day basis. Barraging your customers with constant emails can lead them to unsubscribing from the service.
You have to carefully calendar your emails and sticking to a monthly or bi-monthly schedule is ideal. However, if you have an enticing offer (i.e. a contest with a great prize), you can send additional emails as those are the kind of content that most people subscribe to emails for.
Select an Email Marketing Server
There are numerous email marketing platforms available online such as Mailchimp, Constant Contact and Salesforce and most of the time, they offer free trials for new members. If you’re just starting your email marketing and have a small database, you can even run campaigns using regular email providers.
However, as your business grows, it is recommended to use email marketing platforms that will organize your customer database and provide you with insights to check how effective your campaigns are (most providers will give you information on email open rate, number of click-through etc.)
Email marketing is a tried and tested strategy for businesses to strengthen their relationship with their customers. The best part is that it’s VERY cost-effective. If you have not tried this method yet, we suggest you incorporate this in your communication strategy and we guarantee that an effective campaign can dramatically increase your sales.
