Why Email Marketing:
When complimented by other efforts such as search engine optimization, content creation and social media engagement, email can be an extremely powerful marketing channel. Email can be used to distribute newsletters, create brand awareness, promote specials, announce new services and products, invite people to events, educate your customers and more—very quickly. Other reasons to incorporate email into your marketing efforts include:
- Inexpensive: Email marketing is affordable in comparison to traditional marketing efforts. Most emails markeitng service providers have high- quality templates where you can throw in your information and will charge a fraction of a penny per email.
- Effective: Email marketing enables you to proactively communicate with your current and perspective customers instead of waiting for them to return to your web site or store front. Email communication can improve ROI of all your retention and lead generation efforts. Since studies show that it takes several contacts – six to seven, on average – before you actually turn a prospect into a customer, email can be a lot more effective than traditional advertising and marketing efforts.
- Immediate: With the tools available, anyone can send quality email newsletters, promotions, announcements and more. With it’s immediate call-to-actions (“click here to take advantage of this offer”, campaign response occurs within 48 hours of the time the email is sent.
- Measurable: Most email marketing service providers have a number of different metrics and event incorporate Google Analytics.
- Targeted: You can target certain subscribers through list segmentation – the practice of separating clients basted on status with the company and interests in certain content.
The 4 Steps of email marketing include:
Step 1: Grow and Manage Your List –
- Give away an item of value: Give away a free ebook or webinar (record your webinar, and offer that to people when the event has passed). Create a landing page for your item of value and drive traffic to that page through purchasing Google keywords. For consistency, your landing page should match the look and feel of your email.
- Never Purchase Lists, always earn your subscribers. Be clear to your target market about what the value proposition is.
- Grab Attention: It’s not enough to have an email subscribe form tucked away in the sidebar of your website. It can also be put at the bottom of every blog post. You can do this by coding it automatically or, if you’re comfortable with html, manually to customize your message based on the blog post. Also, new popular pop-up software, Pippity makes grabbing visitor attention and turning it into an email list easy.
- Cross Promote: With any marketing initiative this is important. Promote your newsletter through all your social channels. Create a sign up form as an application on Facebook. You could also consider putting a newsletter sign-up link in your email signature. Make sure that in your email blasts you put a subscribe button for those who forward your email to a friend.
- Collect emails at events: Bring a clipboard or sign-up book with you to trade shows and conventions and ask permission to send emails to those who sign up.
Step 2: Optimize Your Emails –
- Use HTML email: To present your company in the best light possible, use html email.
- Auto Responders: Set up an auto-responder that reminds people they opted in to your email database. Each auto- responder should include additional content to reward the reader for opting-in.
- A/B Testing: This is a way to test what call-to-action, subject line, testimonial, layout, personalization, body text, headline, closing text, images, and offers perform best against each other.
- Subject Line: Writing a compelling subject line is important- aim to create a sense of urgency while explaining what one should expect when they open your email. A subject line should contain no more than 30 – 50 characters.
- Call-to-Action: Your call-to-action should instill confidence and should always be above the fold and repeated at least three times throughout the email.
- Ask them to White List you: In your first email, ask them to white list you or you may end up in their spam folder.
- Mobile Friendly: Make sure your email shows on every mobile device
- Links back to Website and Blog: Use your email newsletter to drive traffic back to your website, blog, and social media channels.
Step 3: Keep Your Subscribers –
- Sell it as an extension of the value you already provide: Create an email sequence offering a lesson each week.
- Keep a consistent company Voice: People only give out their emails to people they trust, so come off as friendly and people will feel a connection with you.
- Give off the air of exclusivity: When you’re first starting out, you may want to include a testimonial.
- Stay timely and consistent: Make sure your email is sent out at the same time each week or month as people will begin to expect it
Step 4: Measure Your Results –
- Open Rate: This metric is unreliable for several reasons. An email is only counted as opened if the recipient also receives the images embedded in that message and large percentage of email users have this blocked. It’s better to focus on click-through-rate for a measure of email campaign success.
- Bounce Rate: The percentage of total emails sent that could not be delivered to the recipient’s inbox. There are two kinds of bounces to track:
- Hard Bounces: This is the result of an invalid, closed, or non-existent email address.
- Soft Bounces: These are the result of a temporary problem with a valid email address, such as a full inbox or problem with the recipient’s server
- List Growth Rate: This is a measurement of how fast your list is growing. Calculate this metric by subtracting opt-outs and hard bounces from the number of new email subscribers gained in a month. Then, divide that number by the original list size.
- Click-through rate: This is the proportion of the audience who click on one more link contained in an email message. This indicates whether the message was relevant and the offer was compelling enough to encourage recipients into action.
- Conversion rate : This is the percentage of recipients who clicked on a link either an email and completed a desired action. This is the ultimate measure of an email campaigns effectiveness. This will require integration between your email platform and web analytics, which most email marketing platforms already have ready for you.
Still confused about email marketing? Give us a call today at 830.331.9995 or email us at sales@rainman.com and we’ll happily walk you through the email marketing process.
