Marketers have a lot of channels through which they can reach customers. And despite email marketing often being perceived as a dying channel, it continues to be an effective way to reach current and potential customers. But long gone are the days of one-size-fits-all email messages. Consumers receive a lot of email and you can easily annoy your target audience if don't think before you send.
Some tips before you start blasting out email messages:
Integrate Your Email Campaign
Your email campaigns should not be stand alone components. Because your customers are getting information from a variety of channels, you need to think about how your email campaigns complement and work with your other marketing tactics. Equally important, you need to have the tools to be able to easily manage and track those various tactics.
Ask First
It may take longer, but make sure you have permission before you start sending someone email messages. Make sure the addresses on your lists are those who have subscribed or signed up in some way. Blasting people with email without permission is a quick way to lose potential and current customers.
Get to the Point
Make your subject line relevant; people often delete things if you make it too difficult to determine what you want. Get right to the point in your subject line. And brevity is a beautiful quality in an email message. That doesn't mean you have to be boring. You can be clever and concise. Tell them what you need to tell them and don't make them scroll down through paragraphs and paragraphs. Embed some links so they can learn more.
Return to Sender
Make sure the address you send the message from is one that will be a recognized by your audience. If you use a generic email address or something that looks suspicious, your message is not likely to be read. Using the domain name of your company is usually best.
Target Wisely
Don't send the same message to everybody. Have a separate address list for customers you are nurturing, returning customers and those you haven't heard from in a while. Target your messages to each of those groups. Depending upon your business, you can have all sorts of groups and target them with messages only they would care about.
Don't Be a Fire Hose
Always think before you send an email. If you constantly send messages, your audience will tune you out. Have a point and a purpose to each message that fits in with your overall marketing goals. And know when to use email and when to use other marketing tools.
Be Agile
Set up tracking and pay attention to that data. Know how many people actually opened the email messages, how many were undelivered, etc. Learn from that information to make future email blasts more effective. Don't take it personally; people get a lot of email. If you know what your customers want and what has been successful in reaching them, you will build stronger credibility, customer loyalty, brand awareness and gain more business.