Email Marketing That Works

Email marketing can be a highly beneficial arm of your digital marketing campaign, but there is absolutely no point in sending out a promotional email each week or month if your recipients are pinging it straight to the spam folder or trash before even opening it. So how do you create emails that grab (and keep) your customers’ attention? And, more importantly, how do you use email promos to increase conversions?

As consumers we have adept at ignoring spam and scanning through promotional material, so a good way to approach your email marketing strategy is to look at it as creating (and maintaining) personal correspondence between you and the customer. Your content needs to be personalised, worthwhile, and distinctive from the rest of the marketing mailouts that drop into your subscriber’s inbox. Here’s how it’s done:

• Welcome new customers and make a genuine first impression. Reward customers for signing up for a newsletter or registering an account with you – promo codes, money off vouchers and exclusive offers – and make their experience personal.
• Show recipients why they should keep you off the spam list rather than spouting off about how great you are or keeping emails dull and perfunctory. Grab their attention with a subject line you can’t NOT click. Then follow up with great content.
• On the subject of content, make it count – you may only have one chance to persuade email viewers not to unsubscribe so make each email unique and interesting. Highlight offers, provide subscriber-only codes, update on recent news, tease about upcoming events, and offer valuable information that is worth reading.
• Your emails need to achieve two goals: to get viewers to read your content, and to get these readers to click through to your site or follow through on a call to action. Your emails should lead the viewer to a mutually appealing conclusion – to click or buy or act. It should be intriguing and irresistible to your customers and should provide you with something of value: a social follower, a purchase, feedback, whatever.
• Once you’ve captured your reader’s attention, next you give them access – easy clickthroughs to your site, specific offers, hell – take them right to the checkout with the item you’ve just mentioned already in the basket and the discount already applied! Make it easy for customers to find you on social media or to contact you via email or phone.
• Show customers they’re valued and that you actually know who they are. You can do this by personalising content according to previous purchase history: celebrate birthdays, tell them when an item they bought previously is on offer, recommend similar products and make educated guesses for what they might be after next. Give them a reason to stay a customer and stay subscribed.
• Cut the promo spiel and get to the juicy stuff – provide useful content in the actual email so if the don’t have time to click through to your site they still get something out of reading it. Chances are next time they open their inbox they’ll feel favourably towards your email and give it a second look – and a clickthrough. Use multimedia, topical subjects, valuable info, tips and tricks – don’t just stick to sales and promos!
• Finally, see your marketing emails as mini websites pinged straight to customer inboxes – use bold imaging and aesthetic layouts, add sidebars with useful links and social media info, reflect your branding style so that readers know who the email is from as soon as they open it.

Email marketing shouldn’t be a boring regurgitation of your weekly offers or a pointlessly self-serving description of your business, so make your promo emails truly worthwhile and boost your site traffic and sales with every mailout.

Author: Ikroh SEO tm
Courtesy: www.ikroh.com