You’ve Got Mail: Reaching Customers through the Long Arm of Email
What to Do to Make Email Marketing Effective for Your Business
Email marketing is the second most effective advertising technique in improving search results, next to search engine optimization. Easy and inexpensive, this method is effective for your online marketing needs when you do it properly. You can engage customers with something as simple as an email, provided the message is correctly worded and well done.
The first step you must take to succeed in email marketing is to study your target customers. What emails do they want to see on their inbox? What content do they want to receive? Do they have email addresses and how often do they log on? Study first to see whether sending emails to your customers will work for you. There are some people who prefer to keep their inboxes private. Conduct a survey and ask your current customers to learn whether they would like to hear from you through email. This would be better instead of going straight to email marketing and being labeled as a spammer.
Ask your customers about what they want to hear from you. Are they interested in industry updates, technical data, product information or special offers? Data gathered from these questions help you customize the emails you send to every user. Customer 1 might like getting product how-to information while Customer 2 wants to receive updates on technology developments. These preferences will help you send more emails that will encourage customers to open your message, click, link, and engage.
Another way to learn customer preferences is to monitor their activity on your website. This will help you find out which parts of the site they’re most interested in. Relying only on this data, however, can be detrimental as the content will all be the same every time you send an email. According to Greg Fant, Vice President of the North America Marketing Group in eBay, it would be better to add some popularity-based links in your email. This will catch attention from customers, as popular articles or products tend to match with the general public’s preferences.
It also pays to study email metrics to measure the progress of your campaigns. Lowell Miller of Qwest Communications advises email campaign managers to watch out for:
- Open rate – determines whether subscribers receive and open your emails;
- Click-through rate – tests the relevance of the content and its value to customers;
- Conversion rate – calculates if the right message was sent at the right time to the right person; and,
- Cost-per-acquisition rate –examines the effectiveness of the email method.
Analyzing statistics from these metrics will allow you to see whether to continue email marketing or not. This will also show you which parts of the campaigns are failing to fetch the percentages optimal for your marketing efforts. If your rates are going down, try experimenting with the subject lines, content and the overall look and tone of your email. The right combination might help you gain higher open and click-through rates.
Non-marketing content can also increase customer engagement. Send some articles about new product features, company updates, funny articles and more. Emailing a mixture of promotional, popular and personalized articles will increase customer interest in your emails. Customers who just bought a product also appreciate messages asking about how they like using the product. You can include service information, how-to advice, and other information about their purchase. This shows you’re a responsible entrepreneur who wants to ensure that the product provided is satisfactory.
Responding to email inquiries is important as well. Nobody likes to have their inquiry ignored or unanswered for a long time. Make sure that every email is answered, so customers are reassured their interaction is essential to you. If subscriber data don’t show any activity, strive to re-engage and maintain contact with present subscribers. Reach out with attractive deals to encourage a customer to open your email and click the links.
Email marketing can be successful if you adopt the right techniques that work for your line of business. Success may be hard to reach the first time, but you’ll be able to engage with your customers once you find the right content formula. Try marketing through email and see whether it’s a fit for your business.
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