Email Marketing. One of the most widely used forms of marketing communication today. When used correctly, it can be one of the most effective forms of marketing that you can use for your business, despite the bad press that marketing emails receive.
According to data from Radicati at the start of the year, there are around 124,500,000,000 business emails sent and received each day. Which just goes to show how widely used email is in the business world. The decision makers of a business will be regularly sending, opening, replying, and deleting emails. So how do you make your email stand out and increase the chances of it being opened and followed up rather than marked as spam and deleted?
Know Your Audience. When creating an email campaign the first and most important thing to do is think about who your audience is. What would grab their attention? What tone is appropriate? What type of content will most likely appeal to them? Once you have established this you can then start to build the campaign based on who your audience is and their needs.
Layout and Style. When creating email campaigns you will need to think about the layout and style of the email that will best suit the topic. For example, if your email campaign is informing your clients about minor changes to products or services that they purchase, you will want the email to look almost like a newsletter but with a bit more of a serious design. This could be done by writing a standard email but centring the text and adding a splash of colour. This way the email is eye-catching but still contains all of the relevant and important information and displays it in a professional manner.
Links! Links! Links! Depending on the software that you use to create your email campaigns, open rates are often inaccurate. Instead of looking at how many people opened the email, see how many times someone clicked specific links. This can tell you whether they have a legitimate interest and you can then begin to follow up on this. You can include links to your website, links to resources used for facts, video links etc.
Personalisation. When creating email campaigns you need to think about what you would want to see if you were receiving the email. Mass emails can often be impersonal, for example opening with 'To whom it may concern' or 'Dear Sir or Madam'. If you have the recipients name and other information in the data, why not use it? Not every email needs to be in a highly professional tone and sometimes it certainly doesn't hurt to relax a little when contacting some. Instead, try adding personalisations such as 'Hello Mark' or if you want to be somewhere in the middle try 'Hello Mr Hughes,'. This can be used in other situations too, such as when mentioning their business. Rather than saying 'I have noticed that your company have..' try using 'I have noticed that Example456 LTD have..'.
What are some of the benefits of email marketing?
Low Cost. Email marketing is one of the most low-cost methods of marketing. It alleviates post and packing costs as well as printing costs and hired advertisement space. The only costs would be for a software package in which you will create, send and analyse the effectiveness of your campaigns.
Simple Management. When using a good quality email software, for example, Campaign Monitor or MailChimp, it makes it relatively simple to manage your email campaigns and track the interest of recipients. Through data such as click-through rates and unsubscribe rates.
GDPR Features. Software such as Campaign Monitor have features that help to keep your campaigns compliant when it comes to GDPR. For example, if you create an email campaign and upload a data list, anyone who unsubscribes from your email marketing will automatically be removed from the list, so if you attempt to use the same list for your next campaign the software has already removed those who have opted-out which gives you one less thing to worry about.
What are some of the drawbacks of email marketing?
Inaccurate Tracking. Depending on the type of software that you use to create your campaigns, some of the email statistics can be inaccurate. For example, some open rates will track every device the email was sent to. Of course, if you are sending to an enquiries email or an information email then many people in that business could have access to that account and the open rates can show up as something like 47 opens from one email address, which of course is ridiculous. Links are the best way to track recipient interest but sometimes it can be difficult to fit links into the campaign depending on the context.
Busy Mailboxes. Most business owners will have extremely busy email inboxes. This means sometimes your email can be buried under the pile of unread emails and could take a while to be read, or may not be read at all. Some email accounts also have an inbox cap, so if you send an email to someone who's email inbox is full, then the email will just bounce and won't be delivered.
Marketing and Design Knowledge. When creating email campaigns you need to have the knowledge to make the campaign effective. You want to make sure that the written content gains interest and contains all of the information needed to make the hard sell. Design is also a big part of creating campaigns. You will need to create a design that will catch the eye of the reader but not look too harsh. Things you need to consider when designing a campaign is font size, colour, style, background style, colour and width, logo placement, link placement, salutation use and signature design and not to mention finding the most effective delivery time. If you haven't created email campaigns before, it can be hard to find the right balance, this is where outsourcing can come into play.
Is it Better to Outsource Email Marketing?
Email marketing can be a very time consuming and frustrating method at times, especially if you are new to creating these campaigns. When you outsource your email marketing you're not just making one less job for yourself. You're handing the reigns over to marketing experts who have extensive knowledge of how to create effective, high-yield email campaigns that will promote your business and increase company awareness.
Our email marketing services allow you to carry on with your day-to-day business running and gives you one less thing to worry about. All you have to do is work with us on creating the content, and we will create and manage the entire campaign for you. From creating the content, managing the delivery and the analysis of post-campaign data, our mission is to provide you with a successful and effective campaign each and every time. Our email services are offered in conjunction with our highly effective and renowned telemarketing lead generation services, by combining the two, you could triple your conversion!