A dozen tips for a successful email
campaign
1) Have a great list
You could buy or borrow a list, but the best names on your email list
are the ones of people who have actually asked to be there. Make sure your
website, your blog and your social media all offer an opportunity for people to
sign up for email news. Likewise whenever you’re out in the real world, at
conferences or trade shows or anywhere you might go. Also, don’t forget that your emails themselves may be
forwarded around, so always include a sign up link in the email itself.
2) Create content, borrow content, make
it relevant
Content is king. Tell a story or, preferably, use a real anecdote that is going to be
helpful to your target. Illustrate how your goods or services solved a problem
or increased sales, as seen here or here.
Use client success stories, testimonials, relevant content found on
the web, and so on and so on . . . take it (with proper attribution of course)
and use it and make it make sense for your clients, as seen here.
3) Make it “about them” rather than
“about us”
Your company should be seen as a problem solver, not as a shill. Your
readers don’t really care about your company unless it can solve some of their
problems. Keep this in mind always.
4) Pull them in deeper
Creating hyperlinks that lead your readers away from your email
actually helps build long term loyalty. In each email, try to include one link
that leads outside of your company (click here) and one that leads inside, to your website
or blog, for example.
5) Make a record, create a library,
be the expert. Blog.
A blog allows you to create a permanent record of all your success
stories in one easy to use, searchable location. Use it frequently and it will
make you look like the expert you actually are. Every email should include a
passive link or an active redirection to your blog.
6) Repurpose, reuse, reach more
If you wrote it for email, maybe it could be a blog post. If you wrote it for your blog, maybe
you should tweet it, if you tweeted it, you should probably pop it up on
facebook.
And
if it’s worth doing all that, it’s even more worth doing it all again. Reach
and frequency are the classic measures of advertising media, but for some
reason these days, many people don’t think to send their message out more than
once.
In
fact, reposting in any format can increase reach by up to 50%. Think about how
you personally use social media: you’re on at a particular time of the day, day
after day. If someone posts updates during the times you’re not there, you
might just miss them.
7) Find content from within
Invite all your employees to blog about your goods or services and how
they work in real world situations for real world users. There are no better
experts than your own employees. Let your customers hear from them -- many of
the questions your clients or potential clients might have about your goods and
services will be answered in this way.
Mine these posts as a source of email content.
8) KISMIF
Keep It Simple, Make It Fun. If you have a more complicated story to
tell, tell it after the jump with a link so that your readers won’t get bogged
down with it unless they want to.
9) Write a good headline!!!
Even the Nigerian 419 scammers know this much.
10) Send test emails
Send them to friends on Macs and friends on PC’s. Send them to
androids and iphones. Make sure your email (and any included images) works in
all formats.
11) Analyze, repeat, delete
Most
mass email programs (such as Constant Contact, MailChimp or iContact) allow you
to see how your various emails are performing. Without feedback, there can be
no learning. Pay attention to what’s working or not and soon enough, you’ll
develop a nice feel for email marketing.
12) Update your great list
Take
care to delete those who have asked to be removed, delete duplicates, add new
contacts. Update it after every single mailing; it’ll be best for everyone.
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