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Don't Give Up on E-mail Marketing
For a while it seemed that
email marketing would completely replace ‘snail mail’ - the more
conventional kind of mail that’s been around for centuries.
Email offers so much - speed, low cost, ease of response and the ability
to send attachments with documents or photographs. It’s most certainly a
great way to communicate but unfortunately not everyone has used it
responsibly.
First came spam – unsolicited commercial emails that now account for
more than 60% of all emails sent. Then came viruses, a variety of scams,
and finally legislation that’s made it hard for legitimate marketers to
use email unless they obtain the recipient’s permission before sending
anything. Isn’t it easier just to revert back to envelopes and postage
stamps?
Well, no it isn’t. Email is
still a powerful marketing tool but it does require some care and
feeding to make it work. It begins with an understanding that you have
to give in order to receive.
Whatever business you’re in, somewhere along the way you have one or
more customer ‘touchpoints’. These are places where you interact with
your customers and prospects, including everything from when they visit
your website to when you send out an invoice. These are also valuable
opportunities to ask for permission to send someone an email with your
marketing message.
But in these privacy conscious times you need to offer people a good
reason to give you their email address and accept email communications
from you. This is where the clever marketers get the information they
need and the not-so-clever wind up with a very small email marketing
list.
The first rule to follow is to be open and upfront about asking for
permission. Don’t try to trick it out of someone by promising something
that won’t be delivered. ‘Complete this survey and go in the draw for
$1000’ has worn out its welcome and is now a sure way to encourage a
press of the ‘delete’ button.
Have a privacy policy that reassures people their information won’t be
sold or shared with anyone else – and be sure to enforce it. Unless you
clearly communicate this to people when inviting them to join your
mailing list you’re almost certainly going to be rejected.
Tell them what you’re going to
send them by email whether it’s product offers or a quarterly newsletter
about your business. And give them a reason to want to receive it;
this can be anything from genuine savings to information that will make
their lives easier. Be inventive and look at it from their point of
view. Nobody’s really interested in just receiving more advertising.
Give them a choice of subject matter if it’s appropriate. Some
businesses market a range of products from hardware to clothing and it’s
wise to offer people the opportunity to designate the subject or
subjects they’re most interested in.
Be sure you’re clearly
identified as the sender of the email. This will help avoid
getting deleted with all the unwanted communications. Also pay attention
to the ‘subject’ of the emails you send out – make it as appealing as
possible to encourage the recipient to open and read what you’ve sent
them.
Have a CRM or other system in place that correlates what you send out
with the orders you get back. This will tell you lots of valuable
information including which offers have worked the best and the
interests of individual customers. It also provides you with an
opportunity to thank customers for their purchases and get some feedback
on how satisfied they are with their selection.
Finally, be sure that you’re up-to-date with all the relevant
legislation that governs what you can and can’t do with email marketing.
It’s a rapidly changing and often confusing environment in which to work
and if you’re in doubt about anything seek advice from a specialist with
expertise in this area.
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