With the rise of Social Media and Mobile Marketing, email may seem a bit like yesterday’s technology. As much as people are attracted to the latest thing, old-fashioned Email is still the best way to get and retain customers for small businesses. Asking customers to subscribe to your email newsletters and bulletins should be a standard question at your point of sale. Also, you’ll have a better chance of getting them to sign up if you offer some kind of bonus or discount.
Assuming you’re using a small business email marketing service, the issue becomes how to get customers to read your entire email, and convert email links to sales. Email is both easy and hard, a powerful tool that is readily misused.
Here are some tips on how to craft your customer emails:
Clearly Define your Goals
Before starting an email campaign, it’s very important to identify your business goals in a clear and quantitative way. Are you seeking to promote new products? Clearing out inventory? Targeting certain subscribers? Getting more foot traffic? By having goals, it will be easier to draft your campaign and monitor results.
Engage the Reader in the Subject Line and the First Few Sentences
A recipient first looks at the Subject line. By all means, it should not look like spam. It must be interesting or familiar, or it will be discarded. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes.
Most people have a preview pane turned on by default in their email app. This means the first part of your email, which is displayed there, plays a crucial role in the decision whether or not to open. This is where you want to build on the content of the Subject line. Fill it in with the core points of your marketing campaign, listing your best offer or key benefits.
Personalize
Who doesn’t like to be greeted by name? When you collect customer’s email, be sure to also get their names. With email marketing, personalization is key. Use mail merge tools when possible to address the recipient by name.
Get the Reader to take Action
As part your campaign, you’ll generally need the reader to take some action, come into your store for an event, click on a link to a landing page where there may be a form or special offer. You want to make sure that it’s absolutely clear what you expect them to do and they can expect from you in return.
If you direct them to a landing page on your website, make sure it matches the visual style of the email, and looks like what they expected from the email.
Stamp your Brand on It
Be consistent with formatting and tone. You want your customers to immediately recognize your style and brand. Set up a unique template that defines your business. This makes it easier to create future campaigns and markets your brand.
Know When to Send
Newsletters should be sent out at least once a month. If sent more infrequently, readers may forget they subscribed and think your email is spam. You emails should be sent on a regular schedule and on-time.
Don’t Land in the Junk Filter
If you use multiple dollar signs or exclamation marks in your email, not only will you turn off readers instantly, you message will most likely be tagged as spam by the recipient’s junk filter.
Answer Questions
Email is a two-way street and often you’ll get questions from customers after an email newsletter or campaign. User questions make excellent content for the next newsletter.
Let them Opt-In and Opt-Out
No one wants unsolicited email, and annoyed customers are worse than no customers. So It’s important that you only include those who have opted-in, via a signup sheet or a click through.
It’s equally important that they have the ability to opt-out. However, unsubscribe instructions, along with legal disclaimers should be at the bottom of the page, and especially not in the preview pane area.
Most email marketing services have opt-out capability, along with list-management.
Summary
Essentially, you want to spend some time planning your email marketing efforts to achieve the best results. Know what you want to accomplish, understand the market segment you are targeting, write your copy in way that your customers will want to read.
If you have had experience with marketing campaign and have any additional tips, please comment below.