EMAIL MARKETING (NEWSLETTERS)

Email marketing can be a highly effective way to get new customers, to build customer loyalty and get additional business from your existing customers, and to build your credibility and brand awareness. It can be particularly effective for eCommerce businesses, where a well-crafted offer can lead to an almost immediate impulse buy. Compared to other direct marketing methods, email is also cheap and fast, quite easy to track, and is capable of reaching a very large audience. It’s not without pitfalls and drawbacks, but it’s certainly something to consider for your business.

BUILDING YOUR RECIPIENT LIST

The key prerequisite for any email marketing campaign is a list of recipients. Without a doubt, the very best way to get this is through a newsletter sign-up on your website. People who have visited your site and taken the trouble to add their email to your list are interested in what you have to offer; they are, at the very least, “warm leads”.

The best way to handle newsletter signup is via a well-respected third-party service. The service will automatically handle requests both to signup and opt-out of further emails, take care of sending out the emails themselves, automatically remove addresses that are no longer valid, and usually also provide you with data so that you can assess how well your email marketing efforts are going. We’ll help you choose a service that’s right for your business, and integrate it seamlessly into your website. If you think that email marketing could be worth trying we strongly suggest that you get the signup fitted to your website as early as possible. The sooner you start building recipients, the more you’ll have when you’re ready to send out your first newsletter.

Not everyone who visits your website will take the time to sign up for emails, but there are always ways to entice people to do so, e.g. a discount on future purchases, free entry a prize draw for one of your products, etc.

Of course, you can also purchase ready-made lists of opted-in recipients, but this is less than ideal; the people on the list have not directly opted in for your emails, and so few may have any interest in your products/services. Furthermore, you have to trust that the email addresses are valid and that their owners truly have opt-in. If you send them emails and they report you as a spammer (see Legalities section below), it’ll be your business that has to deal with the consequences.

CRAFTING YOUR NEWSLETTERS

The toughest hurdle you face with an email marketing campaign is getting recipients to read at least part of your message. This starts with the first thing the recipient sees: the email title. Think carefully about who your customers are and what needs they have, and try to create a title that will engage them immediately. You’re competing for the reader’s attention against all the other emails that arrive each day; “Company X’s Newsletter 3” isn’t going to do that.

Your first paragraph has to be equally compelling. Many email apps display the first sentence or so of each email to help the reader decide which ones to open, and which to ignore. Assuming that your title has got the viewer’s attention, don’t blow it with an uninspiring opening paragraph.

In addition to the content, you have to consider the format of your newsletter. You can use plain text only, or combine it with styling and images that make it more like a web page. Colorful, graphical emails generally work better to engage the viewer and allow you to draw extra attention to your “call to action”, however, it’s very common for new reader apps to suppress image loading (e.g. for security, or to save on bandwidth costs) and some people simply prefer to view their emails as text only. We believe the best approach is to make a visually appealing styled newsletter, but ensure that it degrades gracefully when displayed in a more restrictive way. We’ll help you to achieve this, developing custom email templates for you that reflect your brand, degrade gracefully, and of course, look great on the smaller screens in smartphones and tablets.

Finally, it’s always good practice to test your finished email against common spam filters before you send it. You may have inadvertently used a phrase or other cue that will get your message immediately tagged as junk, and your recipient will never see it. Again, we’ll advise you on what services to use for this final pre-flight check.

POST EMAIL REVIEW

Take some time after sending each newsletter to review its performance. Good email campaign services typically give you data on delivery successes and failures and open rates, and you can also see how many recipients responded to your calls to action. We can coach you on how to make the most of this information. You can then try different writing styles, different incentives, and even different email send times to see what works best for your customers, and thus for your business.

LEGALITIES

Though the bulging spam folder in your email account may lead you to believe the contrary, email marketing is regulated, with a hefty fine for anyone caught breaking the rules. As you might expect, however, those rules are rather complicated and poorly defined, but here’s the massively over-simplified bottom line:

You can send marketing emails to your existing customers, to people who have formally opted-in to receiving marketing emails, and to limited companies and partnerships.

You must provide an easy and free way for the recipient to opt out of further marketing emails from you.

WOULD YOU LIKE A MAILING LIST FULL OF HOT LEADS?

EYE-CATCHING NEWSLETTER TEMPLATES BRANDED FOR YOUR BUSINESS? TOOLS FOR MANAGING AND TRACKING YOUR EMAIL CAMPAIGNS?

CONTACT US NOW FOR A QUOTE – IT COSTS LESS THAN YOU THINK!