For an effective email marketing campaign, doing it right matters a lot. Just sending out emails to your subscribers doesn’t cut it anymore. You need to do it in a certain way and get your message over to the right people in the right way.

Here are a few certain tips which will help you deliver better and more effective email marketing campaigns.

1. Establish Your Campaign’s Objectives

Before executing any email marketing campaign, you MUST determine the objectives and targets that you are trying to achieve so that you get the maximum impact from it.

Is this a general monthly newsletter or a specific campaign that needs to hit a target market?

  • A general email marketing campaign or monthly newsletter can help to strengthen your customer relationships and drive additional traffic through to your website.
  • A more specific and targeted campaign needs to delivered to exactly the right people, those who need what it is offering most. Making them aware of the benefits, features and offerings being made.

Whatever the objective of your campaign, just make sure that it has one.

2. Avoid Spam

No matter how hard you try, your biggest obstacle for your finely crafted email marketing campaign is the spam filter.

Over the years as more and more people have started misusing email marketing, Internet service providers all over the world have introduced many different flavours of email spam filters.

Permission based marketing is by far the best and most authentic way to avoid spamming in the process of email marketing.

This may sound an arduous process, however, getting permission from your audience is not that difficult. Offer something useful to your customers (a coupon or special discount, free download, superb and engaging information or just a useful newsletter). In return your recipient agrees to receive your email messages and, often, to provide valuable personal information.

Never underestimate the amazing power of “FREE”.

Giving something away in exchange for permission  is a tried and tested way to get hold of someone’s email address.

When you will give them something free you help build that essential relationship they will be happy to receive emails from you.

3. Opt-in Option

An opt-in confirmation option is a perfect way of taking permission before you add them to your email marketing campaign list of subscribers. Adding an opt-in form to your email marketing message is the best practice in terms of marketing ethics and effectiveness.

4. Right Tool for the Right Job

Once you plan out your campaign objectives and have established your subscriber email lists, the next step is to create the actual message that needs to be sent out.

You really must use a professional email marketing service to send out your email campaigns.

Don’t try to do this all yourself in Microsoft Outlook. That’s great for sending everyday emails, but is not meant to manage subscriber lists and to send bulk emails.

  • Naturally we are biased and always promote Clarke Marketing (apparently there are others on the market)

Make sure that you can manage your subscriber lists, give people the change to change their email preferences, unsubscribe from you and forward to a friend.

An email marketing system will allow you to send visually pleasing emails and get the right impact that your campaign deserves. You need to make sure that you can stand out in the myriad of emails that your recipients get in their inbox.

5. Create the Right Message

Here are some points to be remembered while creating your email marketing message:

  • The subject line is the most essential element of any email message. Make sure that it stands out and try sending split campaigns with two different subject lines to see which is the most effective for you
    (if your email marketing software doesn’t do this – you need to change)
  • Create the content of your message in a clear and readable manner. Less is more with emails.
  • Make sure that your snippets always have a ‘call to action’, sending traffic to your website for further information, or enticing your readers to call you to make that sale.
  • Put the most important content at the top of your email to make sure that it gets read first.
  • People have less time than ever and are always busy so keep your message short and to-the-point.
  • Can you add any personalisation to add some additional impact.
  • Make sure that your email still reads well with graphic turned off. This is the default for so many email reader and you need to make sure that your message still gets across.
  • Just like the subject line, your signature has a crucial importance in an email message. Always include a signature at the bottom of your emails, as it is a good way to attract more traffic to your website. This signature should include your personal details, your company details, and an unsubscribe link.

6. Test, Test, Test

Before you send out an email campaign, make sure that you test it.

Send yourself a test email to make sure that all of the links work and that it looks as it should.

If you have access to more advanced testing, do make sure that you use it. Make sure that your emails looks right across the myriad of email clients to really ensure that everyone can read the mesage as you intent it to be read.

Conclusion

Email marketing is a superb way to get your message across to your audience. It is very cost-effective, easily executed and gives a good impact to your marketing campaign.

Email marketing should not replace your other marketing activities but compliments them extremely well. A well run and good email marketing campaign can grow your customer pool and add to ongoing customer loyalty.

Hearing from your brand repeatedly, with good content reminds readers of your business’ value.

Find out more about email marketing at www.clarkemarketing.co.uk