Top 20 Do’s and Don’ts in Email Marketing
Transform Your Email Marketing
Anyone who has ever used email as a channel for marketing has come to appreciate its numerous virtues, from getting high returns on investment to speed and flexibility and much more importantly, getting results.
But even email marketers fall prey to the ominous old adage of “familiarity breeds contempt”.
With all the sexiness oozing out of the social media these days, you probably think I’m insane for even mentioning email.
But that’s where you’re wrong. The truth is that no one can deny the reliability of email marketing.
Shake Up Your Email Marketing Campaign:
So, you are finding it harder to beat your rivals for those precious internet sales and leads.
Every day, millions of emails are delivered globally, but what makes some email marketing campaigns better than others?
Using these tips can help grow your business:
1 Email Your New Marketing Offers:
You probably know about this one. You know the one where you announce your next sale or the launch of some other product.
This email is basically used to describe and promote a particular marketing offer along with a call-to-action that links to a targeted landing page made for that specific offer.
2 Thank-You Emails:
Whenever a prospect, customer or lead fills out a form on one of your landing pages, a kickback email should automatically get triggered after their submission is confirmed. Depending on the form, these kickback emails are often referred to as a ‘Thank you email’.
3 Product Information Emails:
Product information emails are always a bit tricky. That’s because people generally don’t want to receive these very often. Companies usually send weekly or monthly product digests to keep their customers or fan base up-to-date with the latest features and functionalities.
4 Digital Magazines:
Do you maintain a business blog for your company? If not, you should get on that right away. It doesn’t matter which business category one falls into, many companies choose to send a roundup of short stories or articles on their products that are published on a weekly or monthly basis.
5 Co-Marketing Emails:
Co-marketing is when two or more complementary companies partner together for some mutually beneficial event or promotion.
Co-marketing acts by leveraging the audience of another company to increase your reach.
It is important in these collaborations to make it clear that the offer is the result of a partnership, especially if your co-marketing partner is popular.
6 Internal Updates:
While you are carving up a formidable email marketing plan, it is important for you not to forget a very important audience for your company … your employees! Many companies tend to send newsletters and updates to their employees to keep them in the know about the latest happenings in the company.
7 Lead Nurturing Emails:
These emails mostly consist of a tightly connected series of emails containing useful, targeted content. As the name suggests, lead nurture emails are used to nurture leads through the marketing funnel into a position of sales readiness.
8 Dedicated Sends:
Every now and then, you may want to send a dedicated email to a certain group of people. For example, if you’re hosting a conference or event, you might want to send a dedicated email just to event registrants as an alert.
9 Event Invitations:
Email can be a great promotional vehicle for promoting an upcoming event you’re hosting. But if you want to invite your contacts to an event and motivate them to register, it’s extremely important to clearly showcase why that event is worth their attendance.
10 Social Media Sends:
Wait … what does email have to do with social media? Well, if you’re making good use of LinkedIn Groups or Google+ Events, email has everything to do with social media! As the administrator of a LinkedIn Group, when you send a LinkedIn announcement, you’re directly reaching a LinkedIn user’s inbox. See!
The Anatomy of an Awful Email Marketing Campaign:
11 What to Write About?
Most bloggers have this problem when they are starting off, but when it comes to email marketing, it’s a whole new ball-game altogether.
Luckily, for you, it’s not really much of a stretch. It should be content which complements your product and reflects positively on your business model.
The way I see it, there are three main types of email content: educational, summarization, and offers.
Avoid everything that doesn’t come in these categories and remember this, ‘junk is a choice’.
12 Educational Email Marketing:
People read your email for many reasons, but in large part, it is for educational purposes. The more people learn from you, the more they come to know, like, and trust you, and that leads to business and opportunities.
13 Summarizing Email Content: Be Relevant!
When crafting your subject lines, you have to consider how your audience will perceive it. Summarization is a great way to not have to ceaselessly write new, original material. By summarizing what you’ve already written, you’re providing great content to your readers, which is new to them even if it’s old news to you!
14 Powerful Presentation:
In the real world, a business will not survive on good feelings. You will need to make money. That means you need to sell. You can present offers that do not alienate your subscribers by making sure that the offer is highly relevant to their needs.
15 Give Something Extra!
Why would anybody want to join your email list? Because you’re going to give them great stuff, that’s why. In order to get people to sign up for your email list, you have to know what it is you’re going to give them.
16 NO Reply Emails:
No one wants to get an email that reads ‘Do Not Reply.’ It’s kind of like forcing someone into a one-way conversation and that is exactly the opposite of what a marketer should be encouraging. Take the robot out of the equation, and provide an email address.
17 Using Sloppy Designs:
The layout and design of your email message is one of the first things that will hit the viewer’s eye. An email using a sloppy design will give the impression that the sender is old-school at best and a spammer at worst. Keep your emails clean by using a simple layout devoid of images that take forever, and ever, to load.
18 Targeting People Indiscriminately:
This is one of the biggest mistakes one can make in an e-mail marketing campaign. It is important to not include everyone whose e-mail addresses are on the company’s database, instead streamline the list to include only those who would be interested.
19 Lack of Clarity:
It is important for the e-mail to be very clear, both on the subject line as well as the text. Lack of clarity and usage of vague terms in the subject line can route the e-mail straight into the receiver’s spam folder.
20 No Call to Action!
So, your recipient knows that the Sauna Hot Pants are 20% off.
You’ve done your part, right?
Wrong.
You still need to invite your addressee to do something with the information you have given them.
Put a call-to-action in your email to get the recipient into taking the next step.
Conclusion:
If you really want to create a lovable email campaign, you can start by actively avoiding these faux pas. The bottom line is that in the world of business, the biggest mistake most people make with email marketing is ‘NOT DOING IT’.
This article was written by Roman Viliavin, vice CEO at Promodo SEO Company
Unconventional Thinker and candidate master of chess. Roman has been working in the field of search engine optimization since 2005 and is the moving spirit of the company. Participant and speaker of all major events in SEO business.
Roman has successfully completed dozens of projects and gladly shares his experience with SEO community via articles and various online and offline publications. Follow Roman on Twitter and Facebook.