How Email Marketing Can Work For You

Email marketing is a fantastic communication tool; it allows you to send branded HTML email campaigns directly to your target audience. Email has had some bad press recently with some saying it’s had it’s day and that social media is the next big thing. Social media is important but email is still an part of the marketing mix. This article looks at the reasons to use email marketing, who you should be sending your campaigns to and how you can track its success along with tips to prevent getting caught in spam filters and sticking to rules and regulations.

Why you should use email marketing

No matter what line of business you’re in, there is always a reason for you to communicate with your customers. Some of the main ones include:

  • Promoting a special offer or sale
  • Advertising a training course that you are running
  • Promoting an event that you are organising
    • Offer advice and tips in your area of expertise
  • Telling people of your achievements- have you won a tender or even an award?

These are all valid reasons for you to communicate with your customers and potential customers.

Who should you send your email campaign to?

Purchased Data vs Existing Customer Data
There are many data companies out there that can provide you with good quality databases, allowing you to specify down to the job title of the recipient and how many employees are in the organisation. Although purchasing email data is a good way of getting hold of contacts quickly, it is proven that you get a much better open and click through rate by sending to your existing customers or prospects that have enquired with your business in the past. This is because these people recognise who the email is from and will not think it is spam.

If you don’t have a formalised database as such, don’t automatically think that you will have to purchase one. Have a look through your email address book to collect contact names and email addresses and gather any business cards you have collected- you will be surprised at how many contacts you already have.

Measuring the success of your campaign

One of the huge benefits of email marketing is that you can see exactly who has shown an interest in your campaign through detailed reporting features. Any good quality email marketing software will allow you to see:

  • How many emails were sent and how many actually delivered
  • How many emails were opened
  • Who opened the email
  • Which links were most clicked and by who
  • Who your ‘hot prospects’ are- those people who opened your email the most times and clicked on the most links

All of this information is a great sales tool and gives you warms leads that you or your sales team can follow up.

Getting through spam filters

There are many things that you can do to avoid being categorised as spam, some of the simplest ones include:

  • Avoid ‘spammy’ words such as FREE, CASH, CHEAP etc
  • Check and double check spelling errors or typos. It may sound basic, but poor spelling is an attribute of spamming
  • Don’t use italics or very large fonts- replace large text and titles with images
  • Ensure you have a balance between text and images
  • Avoid using lots of different fonts and words AL IN CAPITAL LETTERS!

Play by the rules!

As email marketing becomes more widely used, rules and regulations are being put in place. The key regulations are detailed below:

  • Identify yourself clearly - you must include the full registered name and office address of your company and country of registration (if you are a limited company)
  • If you are sending to a purchased database it may be worthwhile stating how you obtained their data and that the data is being used in accordance with the data protection act.
  • Make it easy to unsubscribe - the law states that there must be a clear op-out link in every email that you send
  • Comply with the Data Protection Act - this differs between B2B and B2C so read up and make sure you understand what you should be doing.

If you would like to give email marketing a try, sign up for our emailshot free trial.

If you would like to find out more about emailshot or would like a free online demo contact First Impression on 01457 857111.