Running an effective e-mail marketing campaign for most small businesses can prove to be somewhat challenging. Even more so with the current GDPR laws now fully in place.
This being said we feel that the ‘G’ word has been and gone, people have made allot of money through it and wierdly now I seem to be receiving more ‘Spammy’ emails than I did before? Go figure.
Clearly we would recommend following the relevent channels (something we can support you with) but here are the most important areas you should think about after you have ‘ticked’ the above boxes so to speak!!
Email marketing takes time, can be difficult to manage, and, after the first few attempts, you get discouraged. Low response rates, a struggle to think of new ideas, and all the issues concerning the management and building of your database.
So you give up, (and you rationalise this by saying you’re pausing temporarily).
Now is not the time to give up on one of the least expensive, most cost-effective ways of engaging with new and existing customers, bringing them to your website, and then leading them to make a purchase.
By using a specialist e-mail marketing partner, like ourselves, you can keep your company, and your products and services, front of mind, when your potential customers are looking to buy.
We’ve outlined below our ten point e-mail marketing strategy to, quite simply, deliver more business directly to you.
1) Objectives: You need to establish realistic, measurable goals for the your campaign, eg customer clicks on your website, incoming telephone enquiries, discount voucher downloads, or alternative measurements.
2) Target Market: You must clearly define your target market in demographic terms, and there may well be a number of sub groups to be addressed separately and appropriately.
3) The Offer: You must develop an offer which is interesting and useful to the recipient.
4) Your Database: You need to build your mailing list by first making it easy to sign up, and then by making promotional offers to persuade people to register, and to try to persuade them to get their friends to sign up too.
5) Subject Line: One of the most important elements in ensuring your e-mail opening rate is improved upon. You must grab the reader’s attention, and make them want to find out more.
6) Copy Content: Devising an approach requires some research. What are your competitors doing for example? Content needs to be brief, but most important, interesting.
7) Images: Using good quality images can enhance your offer. It’s crucial that they are consistent with those on your website, and important that they are not so large that they take too long to download.
8) Call to Action: All promotional activity should always tell the reader what to do next and spell out what will happen next eg: click here for our 2for1 offer.
9) Testing, Testing: One of the main advantages of e-mail marketing is the opportunity to test. Test different lists, Subject Lines, Copy Content, Offers, Calls to action.
10) On-going plan: You must develop a plan to be implemented consistently and delivered and monitored over the campaign period with a modest investment.
Orchestrating the above yourself is challenging, time consuming, and can feel daunting.
There’s never been a better time to call for help.
I hope our ten point plan makes sense to you, and if you feel that we could help you with any of the challenges outlined above, please call us – topcatmediagroup.com
