Email Marketing

Email Marketing 101

With so many misconceptions and negative impressions about email
marketing, many companies are limiting are eliminating it as a method
of reaching new and existing customers. They're missing out. When
done the right way, email marketing is one of the most effective
communication and sales tools available to the Internet marketer.
Search engine optimization might get your site found, but once your
potential client arrives, a conversation has to start.

Immediate conversions do happen, but more often than not a potential
client will return to your site many times before finally making a
decision to purchase. Communicating regularly with clients has
several huge advantages. You remind them about your products and
services, you establish rapport and trust and you can encourage the
client to take action and make that purchase.

There are most definitely right and wrong ways to do this. Let's
start with the sign up.

Signing up!
Convincing someone to sign up for an email newsletter these days is
harder than it used to be. Consumers don't want to end up on a spam
list or receive unwanted information. Be very clear with visitors
that you will not sell or give their information to anyone.

What information should you ask for? At the very least an email
address but depending on your product or services, you may want more
information about what is particular interest to that visitor. With
this kind of information you can then very tightly target your emails
and as a result generate more interest and more sales. If you offer
multiple services or products, be sure to ask which the potential
client wants to know more about.

Forget about asking for addresses, income, phone numbers or anything
even remotely personal. With online security becoming more of a
factor people hesitate to even give out their names. Quite frankly,
you probably don't need that information anyway until the client
makes a purchase. If you ask for too much too soon, you won't get
sign ups. Once you've established a trust level then you can ask for
more. Most likely people will simply make up fake information in the
first place only. Only require the email address and make all other
information optional. Don't ask for anything that could identify the
person or you risk losing otherwise interested clients.

How should you collect this information? An online form is the most
commonly used method. This form can be connected to either your email
address or to a information collection system. If you're website is
small and you only expect a few sign ups, then using an email form is
usually a low or zero cost proposition. If you're not sure how to
create an email form, there are many tutorials available on the web.

If you expect more then using a commercial email system like Constant
Contact or Campaigner by Got Corporation is definitely more
manageable. Commercial systems can handle the sign up process for you and automatically create lists as people sign up or opt out with
little or not intervention on your part. You can also usually link
these systems directly to your webpage so you don't have to worry
about uploading information or editing.

At this point it's relevant to cover sign up policies. Always,
always, always, did I say always? use double opt in for your
newsletter. What this means is that anyone who signs up will receive
an email asking them to confirm their subscription by either replying
or clicking on a link. Even if you use just an email form on your
site for sign up, set up an auto reply so that people who submit a
request receive an email asking them to reply to confirm.

Automated systems handle this and won't add information to the
database until the double opt in process is complete. Once the
visitor clicks the submit button, they should be redirected to a
thank you page and then immediately receive their opt in confirmation
email. It's also a good idea to send them a welcome newsletter after
the double opt in process is complete. It sends the message that yes
they have indeed signed up and will recognize future mailings as
coming from you.

Email Basics
What should you send? How often? These and many other questions will
depend on your particular business. I receive some marketing
newsletters every day whereas some product promotional newsletters
come once a month or one per quarter. Keep a few things in mind though.

If possible, customize your email campaign based on the information
you gathered at sign up. If your client is interested in menswear and
you send them an email about a new electronic device you're
marketing, the email will fall on deaf ears.

Don't overwhelm your readers with meaningless information. If you
have something relevant and interesting to tell your subscribers
every day, then by all means send out a daily newsletter. If you
repeat the same message over and over, at best your emails will just
get deleted. At worst people will start thinking of you as a spammer.
Send out newsletters when you have something new and interesting to
say. It will keep your dialog with your clients fresh and add
strongly to your credibility.

Focus yours newsletters on one or two main topics that entice them to
click on a link to visit your website. If you're writing information
about topics of interest to your readers, only put an introductory
snippet in your newsletter and invite the reader to visit your site
for the rest of the article. If you have a new product announcement,
don't put every little detail in the email, but once again put a
teaser and invite them to visit your site for more information. This
keeps your emails short and sweet, and brings people to your site
where you can provide them with far more interesting content than an
email can provide.

Speaking of content...


Content:
Keep the structure and the look of your emails fairly simple. The
main reason is that there are so many different email programs and so
many different security settings that a highly structured HTML email
with several tables, a css sheet and complex formatting will likely
be completely ruined and become unreadable. When it comes to email
structure keeps things inviting but very simple.

Use call to action phrases to once again get people coming to your
website. "Click here for more information" is the classic, but
depending on your product or service you can include something unique
like "Special offer for subscribers only, click here" or similar.

Make absolutely sure all your links work. The pages that the links go
to should be specifically for what the newsletter was talking about
not the main page of your website. If it's an article link, the first
thing the users should see after clicking is the rest of the article.
If it's a product link, take them immediately to the product. If the
click doesn't give users the information they were expecting, you
lose credibility and they go somewhere else and consumers don't want
to have to fish around your site for what they were looking for.

Pictures and visuals are great but keep in mind that these could be
lost thanks to email program filtering. Keep the images fairly simple
(not in look but in structure, ie. don't use a complex table to hold
a multi piece image together, slicing works great for web pages but
not for emails), and make sure there is enough text to get your
message across if the picture doesn't make it.

Always, always, always, did I say always? have a working opt out
option on every email. Commercial systems do this automatically and
you can't send an email through them without it. If you're doing it
yourself, make sure you have a statement at the bottom along the
lines of "To be removed from this mailing list, hit reply with the
subject line REMOVE" and honor it if you get one. The reality is very
few people will opt out of a list they opt in to. They may ignore it
or automatically delete it though, and that's where relevance is the key.

Like search engine optimization, email marketing has to be highly
targeted and only used in the most upfront and honest manner
possible. By providing interesting and relevant information you'll
start the dialog with your clients and at some point or another
convert them into sales.

Get Clicked Search Engine Optimization is a Calgary Alberta based
Internet Marketing company offering SEO, SEM, Analytics Consulting
and email marketing.

Sign up for our email list for to be updated when new articles come out!