What do you think of when you hear the word “marketing”? Do you think of spammy emails and pushy salesmen? Or perhaps you visualize a clever sign or billboard advertisement. In this article, we will be talking about the latter half of that equation: email marketing, as well as how it can benefit your business says Peter Decaprio.
In short, email marketing is using email as a promotional tool to increase brand awareness for your business. It does not specifically require adding people to an email list – rather, it is any promotion sent through an automated service to a person’s individual email address.
Types of Email Marketing and How They Work
There are several types of ’email marketing’ – there is paid advertising via email services such as Amazon’s ‘Mechanical Turk’, or there is making use of your own company’s email services and database to send out self-promoting emails.
The most common type of email marketing, though, is where a user subscribes to your mailing list in order to receive information about upcoming products and so forth. This is the kind we will be focusing on today.
To begin with, many people opt for an “opt-in” system when collecting email addresses for their lists: that is they require all subscribers to actively subscribe. Yes, it means more work for you when somebody signs up but it also means that your emails are likely to be wanted by the recipient and thus opened and read.
At the other end of the scale is an “opt-out” system: that is, the recipient must actively unsubscribe if they do not want to receive your email updates anymore says Peter Decaprio. This can be useful for businesses that are sending out mass emails but it has its drawbacks as well – I will go into more detail later on about this system and how you could implement it in your business.
When to Send Out Emails?
This is something that you will need to experiment with yourself depending on your niche and audience, although there are some helpful guidelines you can follow. Many marketers send out their first few emails within 48 hours of signing up, just to say “thanks” and give potential customers a brief overview of what they should expect.
From there, the emails should convey the content of interest to the consumer at regular intervals. For example, send an email about new products or services every week or two. And send out your newsletter on a monthly basis. The timing of these messages is crucial; if they are too infrequent then people will forget you. But if you send them too mostly then they could become annoying (or worse still, be marked as spam).
How Long Should An Email Be?
This is another thing that you need to experiment with in order to get it right for your audience/marketing strategy. Generally speaking though, shorter emails are better than longer ones; this is because many subscribers receive their daily/weekly digest of updates from various sources at once. And so will only have time to read/respond to the shortest ones. So keep your emails succinct if you can.
How to Craft the Perfect Subject Line
The last thing before we go ahead and start building our list. It is crafting a great subject line for your email updates. Unfortunately, this is something that I have seen many new marketers get wrong over the years. What makes a good subject line? Well, there are several things to consider:
Be Personal –
Instead of writing “Products Update” or “New Sales”, take the time to write one that shows you are speaking directly to them says Peter Decaprio. For example, “Some New Products You May Like”. It may seem like more effort but people appreciate it when they feel included in an announcement. That would normally be shrouded in a blanket of general consumerism.
Don’t Use All Caps –
Unless you are trying to convey a sense of urgency, you should avoid all caps in your subject line. After all, that’s the equivalent of shouting at someone and not many people appreciate that. An exception to this is if the word “Free” is involved: i.e. “Free Sample”.
Conclusion: Marketing In A Nutshell
In short, email marketing is an extremely powerful tool for any marketer – but only when implemented correctly explains Peter Decaprio. It could be used as part-funding or even full-funding for a new business. Or it could be employed purely for customer retention purposes. Once a service/product has been purchased by somebody else. The important thing to remember is that there are no shortcuts to success. And you will need to experiment constantly if you want your email list to grow.