Email marketing is directing your messages to targeted addresses. These addresses are either rented or gathered from your opt-in list. Dont worry. This is not spamming. The people whom you send messages to want your information.
An Effective Email Marketing Campaign Will Help Your Business
Target your customers
Build a good rapport with your potential customers
Lower your ad costs (email marketing is cost effective)
Increase return on investments (ROI)
69 percent of U.S. e-mail users have made purchases online after receiving permission-based e-mail marketing, 59 percent have purchased in retail stores, 39 percent have purchased through catalogs, 34 percent through call centers and 20 percent through postal mail.And, 78 percent of those surveyed say they want to receive e-mail from their favorite online merchants. Source: DoubleClick
24 Tips to An Effective Email Marketing Campaign
1.Own a proper domain name
If you are serious about your business, you need to own a proper domain name that will appear in your resource box in all your email marketing campaign. Free domain name like yoursite.xxx.com or www.xxx/yoursite.com will not be taken seriously. It gives people the impression that your business is a fly by night operation.
To build credibility you need to have your own proper domain name (www.yoursite.com) and professional web hosting.
2.Auto-responders
An auto-responder performs 2 important functions. It stores the names and email addresses of your visitors who opted to be on your mailing list, and automates your follow-up process. It can send a single message to thousands of subscribers in your opt-in list automatically.
You can have more than one auto-responder, each sending a different message. Without the effective use of auto-responders, an effective marketing campaign cannot be set in place. Imagine handling the tasks of a growing business without automation.
3.Offer Free Short Courses
The advantage of auto-responders is you can send out messages at preset intervals. You could utilize this capability to offer short email courses lasting from 5 to 7 days. For example I could offer for free a short course Five Days to Effective Email Marketing with this article. Offering short courses is one way to build up your opt-in list.
When your subscribers gain enough confidence in you through email courses, they would be more disposed to buy your products. Needless to say, your products must be related to the courses you offer.
Offering short courses also exposes your subscribers to your products or services.
4.Offer Free Ezines/Newsletters
Ezine is short form for electronic magazines. Share quality and useful information with your subscribers through ezines. Update your products and keep your subscribers posted of the latest developments in your business. This is good for building long-term relationships with them.
When you established your business as a reliable source of information, know-how and expertise, people will naturally be sold to it.
If you have a large subscriber base say 2000 4000, you can sell advertising space in your ezine.
5.Be Personal
Address your subscribers by name. You may write something like, Hi [First name] or [Last name], Thank you for your sign-up. People like to be address by name. It gives them a sense of importance. This is psychology 101.
Though your email will be read by thousands of subscribers each day, write as if you are talking to one person at a time. Use singular pronouns like I, Me, You, Your. This kind of approach is more personal.
6.Be Formal
Just because you are writing emails it does not mean that you do away with all the formality of offline letter writing. Maintain proper greetings, Hi [First name] of [Last name], and proper signing offs like to your success, best regards, etc.
7.Fill in the From Field properly
Fill in your name, not crony names, followed by your full email address so it does not pass off as junk mail. Delete and empty trash.
8.Fill in the Subject Field properly
It must be a clear statement that is relevant to content. Dont leave your Subject Field blank.
9.Remind people how they got on your mailing list
This is good practice. Most people will not remember why, where and what they signed up. Remind them at the beginning of your email how they got on your mailing list.
10.Write as though you are speaking to your friend
Email writing is somewhat different from writing for print. Write as though you are talking to a friend. Dont sound like a university professor or a kindergarten teacher.
11.Be Concise and get straight to the point
Your email text must be concise and get straight to the point. People dont have all day to read your email. A good thumb of rule for an effective email marketing copy is 250 to 300 words. Dont bombard your email marketing campaign with banner ads all over.
12.Use Short Sentences and Paragraphs
Avoid wordy sentences. Keep your sentences short and simple. Dont clump your text together. Use plenty of paragraphs. It is easier to read the text that way. Paragraphs should be no longer than five lines.
13.Never Type your Text in Caps
Online this is interpreted as SHOUTING.
14.Check For Bad Grammar and Misspellings
An email with bad grammar and misspellings gives your subscribers the impression that you dont take them seriously. So dont expect them to take you seriously too. Check and recheck your email copy to correct bad grammar and misspellings.
The opening line is important. Bad grammar and misspelling from the start will get your email copy trashed fast.
This concludes Part 1 of 24 Tips to Set Up an Effective Email Campaign. For more tips, read Part 2.
Gerrick W mailto:gw@1stinternetmarketingsolution.comWe provide information and software tools you need toeffectively market your online business.Visit:
This article is the continuation of 24 Tips to Set Up an Effective Email Marketing Campaign. 14 tips were covered in Part 1. Here are the remaining 10.
24 Tips To Set Up An Effective Email Marketing Campaign contd
15.Use Compelling Heading, and Subheadings
Break up large body of text with compelling subheadings to hold the interest of your readers.
And also most people will first give a cursory glance over your email before they read the full text. Subheadings provide a quick summary of your email text. If you want people to read your full email text, make your heading and subheadings compelling.
16.Use words like free, discounts, bonus, specials sparingly
Excessive use of these words in the email text you send out may be construed as spamming. Dont be surprised if your email copy gets trashed. Avoid these signs: $#%@&.
Perform a quick test with Yahoo free email before you send out your email copy. Sign up for a Yahoo free email account if you dont have one. Send your email copy to the same account. Yahoo and other similar free email services have Spam filters by default. Watch where your email copy lands. Inbox or bulk mail folder. If it lands in the bulk folder, it is likely that your email copy will be treated like junk mail or Spam.
17.Use in text links
They are still proven to be more effective than banner ads.
18.Make sure all in text links are working
Nothing is more annoying than links that are not working. If you want a link to go straight to your website, then this is how it should be written in your email program: http://www.mysite.com. Most email programs will recognize this as a link. Your email link should be written this way: mailto:emailaddress@yoursite.com
19.Create Your Signature File
What is a signature file It is a short paragraph that appears at the end of your email messages. It gives people your name, job title, companys name, email address, website URL. You may include fax and telephone numbers.
Use your signature file to promote your website, products or services, and free gifts you may have to offer. But keep your promotion to a minimum. Dont overdo it especially if you are using the same signature file for article submissions. As a rule of thumb 3 to 6 lines is a good length for a signature file.
This is how my signature file looks:
Gerrick W mailto:gw@1stinternetmarketingsolution.com
We provide information and software tools you need to
effectively market your online business.
Visit: http://www.1stinternetmarketingsolution.com
Include your signature file in all the email messages you send, even to friends and family. You are spreading word about your business.
20.Formatting your text
For text format you need to limit your characters to 65 characters per line. While typing your text you need to hit hard the enter key to break the lines at the correct character count of 65 or less. Otherwise your text will appear all over the shop in your subscribers email programs, making it difficult to read. If possible test with different email programs.
For Microsoft Outlook Express you can automatically set the number of characters per line.
- On the Tools menu, click Options.
- On the Send tab, in the Mail Sending Format section, select Plain Text, and then click the Plain Text Settings button.
- Set Automatically Wrap at 65 characters, when sending.
You could send out your email copy through Microsoft Outlook Express. Alternatively, you could send the copy to your email account. The lines will be formatted to break at 65 characters. Store a copy of the formatted text in another folder. It is now ready for copy and paste.
21.Tracking
This is critical. You want to measure the results of your email marketing campaigns, and know which one works best.
22.Generate Feedback
This area is often overlooked. Provide a means for subscribers to give feedback on how you can improve your product or service, or even ask them why they dont buy from you. Good feedback will go a long way to build your business.
23.Option to unsubscribe
It is considered spamming, if you do not have a link in your email for people to unsubscribe. Normally, your auto-responder provider will do this for you. Most services will have this link at the end of your email text. This link automatically removes subscribers from your database.
24.Respect the privacy of your subscribers
You must make it clear to your subscribers that you respect their privacy, and would in no way give, sell or rent out their email address.
Keep your word.
Period.
Everyday, people are bombarded by increasing choices. To stay in competition, Internet marketers use cost effective email marketing to keep in touch with customers, and to update them of latest offers and new products. An effective email marketing campaign will see returning visitors to your website and increase sales.
Gerrick W mailto:gw@1stinternetmarketingsolution.comWe provide information and software tools you need toeffectively market your online business.Visit: