Many of our clients use email marketing to get their message out to prospects and customers. It’s a great tool. Email allows for segmentation so you are able to target your message to those who will most want to read it. In fact, 13 percent of all leads come from email marketing and customers are six times more likely to click-through from an email than from a Tweet.
Before committing yourself to email marketing, here are some tips to help you prevent common mistakes.
Understanding what permission is and is not
Not following the CAN-SPAM Act can get you into legal trouble. If a form on your website doesn’t specify that those who supply their address will be contacted by you or if you upload a list of addresses you gathered somewhere else, it means permission is not granted. Spamming recipients is a surefire way to wreck your email marketing efforts.
Not confusing the recipient
Email marketing never should stand on its own. Your branding, colors, fonts and logos, should be part of your email campaign. Make sure links within the email go to your website. If this is not done, it confuses the recipient.
Short and to the point
Keeping in mind the way your emails are received are important. Remember we live in mobile society; 41 percent of email is opened on a device. You have approximately three seconds or less to engage a reader. Give them a picture, paragraph and a point of action. Make your message clear and concise.
Is it about you or the audience?
Not every email is an automatic conversion. Be relevant. Make sure your email messages are not about you and your needs (read: no hard sells). Every one of your emails should focus on your target audience and doing your best to fulfill their needs. If you forget about them, you will lose them.
Not monitoring, measuring, or managing
Possibly more important than creating your email marketing campaign and targeting the right audience is taking a look at the results. If you do not, your future campaigns will suffer.
The data you collect in the email metrics can be a gold mine. Examine open rates and days and times that the email was opened. By doing this, you can find the appropriate time to send future emails.
Find out what was more popular and what links received low (or no) click-throughs.
After three or six months, remove inactive subscribers if they have not opened nor clicked-through. Remember, you want to send to a target audience. If these subscribers are not engaged with your mailings, they are not part of the target audience.
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