Email Marketing Best Practices
When running an email marketing campaign,
whether the aim is to increase sales, website traffic, brand awareness, or any
other marketing related goals, the main obstacle to overcome is getting your
target audience to actually open the email.
If an email does not get opened, or worse gets sent to the spam filter,
that is one potential lead/sale/customer which you have just lost.
Typically email marketing
programs have spam checkers, which will look for patterns which are typically
found in spam mail, and let you know if your email will be sent to a spam
filter, or delivered to the inbox. The
main concern once the spam filter has been avoided is to actually get the email
opened by the viewer.
Jamie
Turner, at Dreamforce believes the best way to increase open rates is by
offering an incentive in the subject line, which can increase read rates by up
to 50%. Also, the subject line must be
compelling, and between 30 to 50 characters, and create a sense of urgency.
Once the email is opened you should ensure the
call-to-action is above the fold (in the first section of the email, so the
reader does not have to scroll down to take action on your offer) and easy to
find. The email should not be too
cluttered, and should get the message across to the reader quickly and easily,
with as little confusion as possible.
The emails should also be closely linked to
your landing pages, in order to provide the reader with a seemingly seamless
transition from the email to the landing page, which will make the reader feel
comfortable with the landing page as soon as they arrive on it, rather than
having to figure out how the page works again.
Marketing campaigns must do all they can to
avoid “spamming” customers with too many emails, or else they will quickly lose
leads. Nobody likes spam.
Finally, you definitely want to analyze how
your campaigns did, or else you will never know what stage of the process your
campaign is succeeding in, or failing.
These analytics come from the email marketing programs which are used to
send your email. You can get lots of
valuable information, such as read rates, click through, how much time someone
spent reading the email, and much more.
In sum, email marketing campaigns should be
quick and easy for the reader to navigate, and they should be able to
understand the information you are giving them within moments of viewing the
email.
Here is a quick video by a company which has an
email marketing program. It explains two quick “gotcha’s,” which are things
which should be avoided when on a marketing campaign:
Email marketing is a perfect medium for marketers to build brand awareness, revenue, brand loyalty and keep customers updated about their products or services. It is very affordable and usually effective and also there are 1.4 billion email users worldwide
ReplyDeleteWhen it’s done correctly, email marketing can be an extremely powerful and effective marketing practice. When done incorrectly, email marketing can be very unhelpful, and it might also turn happy customers into very unhappy customers.
Excellent use of video. Success with email marketing is guaranteed. However, knowing what not to do is just as essential to success as knowing what to do. It's a great method to connect with consumers on a personal basis.
Deletesome people think that email marketing is outdated and that its all about social marketing but i found this very cool article that says that email marketing is more effective then social marketing..
ReplyDeletehttp://www.hostpapa.ca/email-vs-social/
In a tradition way email marketing needs huge strong technology as support, which require a high demand for some small-medium size company. However, due lots of activity and research are done internal, some unnecessary budgets are cut down to run in a economical way to save money, which is an absolutely advantage for money-limited corporation.
ReplyDeleteEmail marketing is such an important tool for businesses to use today. It's very interactive, and technology is the norm these days. It's difficult to find someone that doesn't have an email. Email marketing is a very inexpensive way of keeping your customers informed.
ReplyDeleteHowever, email marketing is not always done right. Some companies overuse this tool. I for example, get emails from American Eagle clothing almost every day. You have to use this tool wisely.
email marketing is a great way for companies to reach consumers while also allowing direct feedback from these consumers. if done correctly, the company can gain further understanding of its market and can tailor its services to suit their needs. it is a fairly inexpensive way to reach many people and gain insight to their customers. on the other hand, sending too many emails or not wording the emails right, can alienate customers and cause lost sales.
ReplyDeletegreat job.
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ReplyDeleteI think is can build brand awareness whether its in your spam or not because either way their getting their job done getting you to notice them. If they are successful they will know exactly what their target markets needs are and will meet them. Some companies send too many emails which can be negative or positive but just depends on the person. Great ad
ReplyDeleteMarketers can get very creative with online email campaigns, and it is true that it can be very inexpensive, but it can also be very expensive if done wrong. Some companies don't fully think out their target market, and end up buying or renting email database lists to a target group that isn't relevant to there product or company. Email marketing is really starting to form an identity is the business place, and companies are really starting to take advantage of this growth whether is it for sales, promotions or just brand awareness. The future is going to be very interesting when it comes to email marketing.
ReplyDeleteWhen people are checking their emails they do not want it to be lengthy procedure, therefore companies should send emails that are engaging but simple and to the point. A call to action is also important to increase sales. But, when creating the email, the company's marketing objectives need to be taken into consideration.
ReplyDeleteMarketers sending emails to their client, in my opinion is the best example of segmentation. These people have opted in and want their emails, so these emails are going to people who already have chosen to recieve them. It is not very expensive to send these either, its a pretty good win-win for the company.
ReplyDeleteI feel like company are really starting to get better at keeping in tune with these practices. I am finding myself looking at more emails just to check them out quickly, but once in the email I find myself intrigued by the offers or content that I stick around or click into the website itself. The bath and body works sales always get me. One of the main reasons I am opening these emails is because I am their target market. I receive emails that should have never come to me in the first place, I do not even curiously check them out. I immediately delete or just simple ignore them. Company's really need to strategically choose their recipients a lot of care and consideration.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post! I think email marketing is a great way to great brand awareness and customer retention. By sending emails to consumers, especially if they have voluntarily signed up for your company's emails, gives your business a great way to inform your consumers on news about the company or deals or promotions going on within the store. Also email marketing gives you 24 hour access with consumers and gives you quick direct feedback.
ReplyDeleteI think it's extremely important to have an email marketing platform that highlights quality and concern for the customer within the target market. If i haven't chosen to receive the email, I pretty much can decide right away upon opening it as to whether or not I will read the information based on layout and overall message appeal.
ReplyDeleteGreat Post!
Interesting post, In the past I have tended to avoid email offers as I find them to be a nuisance for the most part, however Jamie Turner's point about how offering an incentive to consumers who are being sent the offers tells me that perhaps I should check the emails before deleting them, after all who doesn't like saving money?
ReplyDeleteGreat Post.
Jamie Turners point about how offering an incentive may increase the read rates of the emails being sent*.
DeleteGreat post !
ReplyDeleteEmail marketing is a very useful tool businesses it can generate a lot of traffic for a website, it can even generate leads. It can reach a lot of customers in a matter of minutes just with a click. Best part of email marketing is that a company can track their email and expect response from the customers if they like it, when a customer likes the email they will visit the company's website which would result in increase of visitor traffic or even sales can be generated. But it should used very carefully and wisely used by the companies, so that customers keep on reading their emails rather than getting marked as spam by them.
First and foremost I certainly appreciate the concise and direct nature of this post. Well done. I find as though often times companies don't abide by the best practices to which you mentioned and often send out cluttered, unimaginative e-mails that, like many are a simply a nuisance and often avoided. Jaime Turners point is a good one, more incentives should be given out for encouragement I feel.
ReplyDeleteThrough email marketing a marketer is able to personalize his message to his customers, Example, A marketer would select the list of all contacts that are located in Hamilton and send them an email specifically to them. Another advantage is that email marketing is a good way of tracking information about your customers that can help in enhancing a good relationship with customers.
ReplyDeleteEmail Marketing is great tool to attract customer. Moreover, companies can create the brand awareness from email marketing. Email marketing will be very interesting in near future.
ReplyDelete