Successful email marketing relies on three elements to achieve its goal. Many a marketer has failed because they have not put these three elements into practice. Let’s look at each of them individually:
- Making an offer attractive to a customer.
- Having a good list
- And being creative
Making an offer attractive to a customer:
In an email marketing campaign, you need attract your customer, and keep them coming back for more. In order to be successful you have to create the correct conditions that make it attractive for your customer to keep coming back time and time again.
What can you offer your customers that they would be tempted to buy from you. Most businesses know that if they offer a special discount on their products they are sure to get customers coming into their stores. Not every one will buy, but the foot traffic that flows through the store makes the opportunity available for the store to showcase their wares.
Email marketing works on the same principle except that you will be attracting people to visit your website, which is your online store.
What sort of incentive can you use?
- You can offer a percentage off the original price of the goods,
- You can offer two for the price of one.
- You could offer a free gift if they sign up for your newsletter for instance. Your newsletter delivered on a regular basis to a potential customer is like inviting a customer into a store.
- What you offer must be attractive enough to entice the customer to either receive your newsletter or visit your website. Once on the website there should be a further invitation for the visitor to sign up to receive the newsletter. The post powerful part of being able to send out a newsletter weekly, for instance, almost means that you are being invited to visit your potential client’s inbox.
The successful list
The second element towards success is your list of people whom you are going to send the newsletter or special offer to.
Getting a list together can be problematic. This is where you have to be careful. You can buy lists from spammers who will offer to email hour advertisement to ½ a million people for a premium price. But that is a shot in the dark, firstly it cold get you into trouble as it’s spamming, you don’t know if the people receiving the advertisement have agreed to receive information from list owner.
The only reliable source of lists is to contact a reliable opt-in list broker or owner. Check the company’s track record, find out how the lists were compiled, ask for proof that the recipients had agreed to receive data from them. Find out as much as your can about the target audience.
The third element is to be creative
Ensure that you put out good copywriting, good design and layout, even though most email sent out in plain text, what and how you put across your point, make it interesting, personal and compelling to the reader. Add your special offers or gifts, and then give them a choice of either replying to the email or visiting your website.
Be careful what you put in the subject line. Often the subject line will be the first thing the reader will read. Make it short, to the point but say enough to make them want to read more. Often just offering a special benefit in the subject line will be attention grabbing.
You success or failure depends on how successfully you carry out these three elements of a successful email marketing campaign.
