In the battle to reach customers companies are having to adopt ever-more innovative marketing techniques, especially as the battleground moves from traditional media to online services and email marketing.
But unless you actively manage your email campaigns the chances are your marketing strategy is in something of a rut, especially given the current economic circumstances. Many companies, unwisely, choose to cut back on their marketing activities at the first sign of a downturn.
According to Matt McNeill of Sign-up.to, following a few principles when it comes to email marketing can make a real difference to your business:
Don't steal
There's no
other way to look at it: buying, renting or selling lists is stealing other
people's time. In the email world it will also wreck your reputation with ISPs
and subscribers, which will make it very difficult to get your emails delivered
to the inbox
Work to make new friends
It's much better
to make new friends instead. Make sure you've got an active acquisition program
to get new people to opt-in to your mailing lists. You can start as simply as
placing a form on your website and then build more involved programmes from
there
Re-acquaint yourself with old friends
Sometimes,
relationships fade, people stop responding to your emails and you lose their
attention. Make a special effort to reconnect this year. Identify those people
who haven't opened or clicked on your emails in the last few months and send
them an email to ask them to re-opt in. Remind them why you're in contact in
the first place and give them a reason to pay attention. Don't be tempted to
try and email people who've actively opted out though
Be more interesting
With all these
new friends, it's important to have something interesting to say. Putting
effort into creating interesting content that engages your audience will pay
dividends. Not only will you get a better response from your current
subscribers, you'll also find you get more referrals
Test campaigns thoroughly
It can be
tempting to get your campaign created as quickly as possible and then just
press ‘send'. However, haste leads to mistakes, which can be embarrassing. Take
a few minutes to thoroughly test your campaigns before sending
Pay attention to other's needs
Remember,
friendship is about give and take. Make sure you pay attention to your
subscribers' needs. Identify what's of most interest to different groups and
target your campaigns accordingly. Your email statistics will provide you with
invaluable information here, so use them wisely
