Improve Your Results With Email Marketing
Many of us log into our inboxes several times a day to check our email. This has become an integral part of most people’s working and private lives. Email Marketing capitalises on this prolific touch-point (some may call it obsession) with the online world by placing brands right in front of their customers in their inboxes.
As one of the oldest forms of digital marketing, today Email Marketing is still a primary tool businesses use to promote special offers and to stay in contact with their customers.
There are two types of email campaigns that businesses use predominately. These are either promotional or relationship-based campaigns. Promotional email campaigns specifically drive leads and sales while relationship-based emails aim to build and strengthen customer relationships by communicating with customers about relevant events, updates, news or other information that is of use to them.
According to EliteEmail.com permission-based Email Marketing can be defined as “emails sent to recipients who have opted-in or subscribed to receive email messages from a specific company, website or individual.” Since readers have opted-in, permission-based Email Marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools and, when utilised properly, it can increase both customer loyalty and brand awareness.
Email Marketing complements offline and online elements in the marketing mix including direct promotions, print advertisements, Search Engine Optimisation and social media campaigns. To integrate Email Marketing with current marketing activities like special offers, newsletter subscribers can be offered an additional discount to entice engagement and increase sign-ups. As part of relationship management links to the businesses’ social networking profiles (like Facebook and Twitter) can be added to the newsletter to encourage readers to connect with the business on a platform that allows interaction on a more frequent basis.
Other than acting as a customer relationship management (CRM) tool, newsletters can position your business as a thought-leader in your industry by offering valuable and informative content to readers. In order to provide your subscribers with content they are interested in, it is necessary to find out what their preferences are. The sign-up form should be kept short and only request the necessary basic information. A subscription should ideally be followed by a confirmation email. You can always gather more information about your subscribers and their preferences later through short surveys or quizzes, or by encouraging subscribers to create a profile on your site. Based on the information and options they select, subscribers will receive newsletters with content tailored to their preferences.
By including subtle calls to action in your newsletter content and linking to targeted landing pages website goals can be reached. Why? Calls to action entice readers to visit your website, request a brochure or ask a consultant to contact them for further information. Furthermore, suggesting that readers forward the email to friends if they found the content valuable can enhance your brand’s awareness and grow your subscriber list.
Based on research consumers are more likely to open newsletters they are expecting, hence it is important to send out your newsletter at regular intervals. As with all online marketing elements, Email Marketing is completely measurable and reporting data can provide valuable insights as to how subscribers interact with your newsletter. Professional email software includes a reporting interface that will indicate the number of newsletters that were opened, how many times the newsletter was forwarded, how many subscribers unsubscribed and how many readers clicked on links in the newsletter. Data collected from these reports can be analysed and used strategically to improve, among other things, newsletter open-rates and the content of the newsletter.
Optimised newsletters can enhance your Search Engine Optimisation campaign when an HTML version of the newsletter is uploaded to your website. Make it easy for website visitors and search engines to find your newsletters by organising them in archives with key-word rich and relevant titles.
In the end, an up-to-date, relevant database with subscribers that choose to receive marketing emails and newsletters from you is the best way to attain a good ROI from Email Marketing campaigns. If you think your Email Marketing campaigns needs sprucing up, contact the AlterSage team. Whether you are looking for an email software solution, a fully-managed solution or simply newsletter content creation, we will gladly assist.