| Staying in Touch with Customers |
E-mail marketing is a quick and cost-effective way to communicate
with existing and potential customers.
Done correctly, it can bring more immediate results than mailers and
print advertising. The key is to get
people to want to receive your mailings and, then, to respond to them.
Both your business and your customers can benefit from an effective e-mail campaign - such as:
- Relationship
building. Frequent, relevant
communication helps build trust and loyalty with your customers.
- Education. Provide relevant research and product
information
- Sales. Announce and sell new products, nurture
leads and obtain prospects.
- Expansion. Expand awareness of your online presence
beyond your web site
- Brand. Build brand awareness.
E-mail marketing is not as simple as blasting a bunch of
e-mails to every person with whom you’ve ever come into contact (which is
actually considered spamming). It’s a
relationship building tool that takes time, planning, proper technology and
tools, and some good design and content.
And, it must focus
on the benefits to your customers, or your e-mails will most likely be ignored.
Before starting a campaign, consider the following:
- Do you
have a compelling product or call-to-action people would be interested in?
- You must
build a quality list that complies with the CAN-SPAM Act. This includes allowing recipients to “opt
in” and “opt out”. You also need to
reassure readers that their information will not be shared.
- If
you’re sending more than a dozen or two e-mails, you should utilize an
E-mail Service Provider (ESP).
- E-mails should be compatible with both HTML and TEXT formats. And, have links that point to landing pages on your website.
- Test
and Measure. Test your e-mail
before you send it and, then, measure its effectiveness. Analyze items like: open
rates, click rates, unsubscribe rates, bouncebacks, website traffic, new
signups, etc.
- Appoint
someone to keep your e-mail list up-to-date.
- Have
patience. It takes time and consistency to
start generating responses.
Whatever you do,
DON’T SPAM!
It’s not spam if you take your list and write personal,
one-to-one emails with unique content to each recipient. Spam is when you send an unsolicited email to
a whole list of people. “Unsolicited” means they have not agreed or “opted in”
to receive your e-mails. Your e-mail
newsletters must be compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. Otherwise, you are breaking the law. To avoid misunderstandings with your e-mail
recipients (and being stopped by SPAM filters), use a double opt-in method when
managing your lists. This will help
ensure you are protected and your customers are not disgruntled.
Rambo Designs has the experience and resources to help you implement an effective e-mail marketing campaign. Give us a call at (540) 337-1420 or fill out our online form today and let us know how we can help you meet your business goals this year.
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To see samples of e-mail newsletters and ads by Rambo Designs, simply click on
any image below to enlarge the images or to start the slide show.
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