Email marketing can be a cost-effective way of reaching your target audience. Below are some pointers to help you along the way when creating an email marketing campaign for your business.
- Decide the purpose of the campaign
Make sure you know what the aims and objectives of your campaign are before you start. You need to decide the purpose of the campaign and the target audience. Defining campaign objectives enables you to understand whether your campaign is succeeding or failing. Some common campaign objectives are;
- Increasing brand awareness
- Promoting a specific product
- Generating repeat business from existing customers
- Driving traffic to a new page on your website
- Compile your mailing list
It is important when compiling your mailing list to make sure you are the right side of the law. Before emailing individuals, you must ensure you have prior consent. The recipient needs to not only understand that they are consenting but what they are consenting to.
- Decide what software to use
Although you may want to use your own email software, such as Outlook, this is not necessarily a good idea, as you may get blacklisted and the package will probably not support the inclusion of images. A better alternative is to use an email marketing software package, where you can design your own emails using templates or HTML. Many packages are free at basic level, but for a more advanced level charges will be made on a weekly or monthly basis. A quick internet search will yield a wide range of email marketing solutions.
4. Decide on the content
First impressions count, therefore getting the content right is of critical importance. An eye-catching title and compelling, relevant content in the form of interesting articles, products or special offers, are good ways to capture and hold the reader’s attention.
5. Give your email a visual impact
Simplicity is the key here; you need to make it easy for readers to find what they are looking for. Graphics work well, but don’t overdo it as the more graphics you have, the longer it takes for the email to load. You need to have a reason for including each image, and make sure that the image is compressed as much as possible to reduce loading times.
6. Test the Email
Make sure you test the email before sending it out to subscribers, as you do not want anything to go wrong that might prevent them doing business with you. Check that all the links work, that images and text are displaying correctly, and that your email will not get stuck in spam filters.
7. Measure the success of the email
If you decide to use an email marketing package, then you will be given performance statistics as part of the package. These statistics, which normally include the number of opens, click-throughs, bounces and unsubscribes, can be instrumental in improving the success of future campaigns.
Network Scientific offer a wide range of sales and marketing services and are experts in email marketing. To find out how we can kick-start your email marketing or revitalise your current campaign contact us.