While new marketing trends tilt toward social media
platforms, the tried-and-true email marketing campaign is still an effective
tool for wooing clients and customers.
Researchers predict email promotions can boost customer
acquisition by 7 percent a year and increase sales. Email campaigns are almost
as effective as organic searches for driving audiences to brands. Companies can
optimize their small business email marketing campaigns by heeding the
following five strategies.
Create multiple opportunities to gather email addresses
An anemic email list is not worth the effort of your best
email campaigns. Always look for more ways to grow your list. Fortunately,
there are multiple ways to persuade current customers and prospects to turn
over their email addresses:
- Require visitors to the company website or store to register for every action, whether it’s saving a shopping cart, buying a purchase or just establishing an account.
- Create contests and giveaways for which visitors must fill out a short form.
- Post free downloads on the site.
- Offer free seminars.
- Offer enrollment in reward clubs or coupon clubs.
- Have a forum.
- Allow comments on the blog section of your website and require an email confirmation before the comment is posted.
- Encourage people to email reviews, questions or suggestions.
- Have a Newsletter sign-up box.
Use both bulk email promotions & transactional email
promotions
Bulk emails, while effective, often go unopened or straight
to the spam folder. Small businesses are having success supplementing
bulk mail campaigns that appeal to general audiences with transactional emails
that offer one-on-one pitching and custom promotions based on past customer
behavior. When sending emails like welcome notices, account approval and
shipping confirmations, small businesses should seize these follow-up
opportunities to recommend goods and services and encourage participation in
polls or social media.
Test and assess your campaigns
Testing can provide crucial information at every level of
the email marketing campaign. Before finalizing the email prototype, use
focus groups or surveys to test the appeal of the design, the subject line, the
arrangement of branding elements, the configuration of ads, the strength of the
promotion and the overall tone of the message. Before actually broadcasting the
missiles, send first to employees and executives; have them open the messages
using different email clients and different devices. Test whether or not all
the features show up in different browsers and email programs. After the send,
use apps to gather metrics on the open rates and conversion rates. Make
improvement based on data collected.
Educate the recipients
List subscribers often get ad fatigue. They can become so
accustomed to being sold something that they ignore emails. Avoid this by
switching up the content; don’t always promote the company’s offerings.
Instead, provide advice and link to a longer related company blog, or share
details about community partnerships or the company’s social activism. This
humanizes the company and builds relationships.
Send out your email campaigns at the most opportune time
Research by Experian reveals that not all times are good
times to send an email blast. Open rates vary by industry, but in general
the highest opening rate for bulk mail – 22 percent — occurs in the evening
after people have left work and had dinner, such as between 8 p.m. and
midnight. Such times also had better conversion rates. Transactional emails are
nearly always opened at any time to day. If your small business lacks the staff
to execute these tips, consider contracting with an email marketing
service to save time or using an advanced email marketing & sales CRM
software like Infusionsoft, an all-in-one sales and marketing automation
software for small businesses.
