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Before Facebook and Twitter, there was the e-mail. While it may be one of the older types of digital marketing platforms used, it can still pack a punch and give you the promotion you need to sell your products and/or services in the present. In fact, according to experts, email marketing is predicted to bring in a whopping $67.8 billion in sales in 2012. So if you’ve given up on the power of the email, don’t. Your campaign may just need a little facelift. To learn 4 easy ways to revive your email marketing campaign, continue reading below.
1. Give Clients Option to “Opt” Out. The first thing you need to do is clean out your email list serve. That’s not to say that you will be starting from scratch, but you don’t want to waste your time marketing to clients that are no longer interested in your products or services. You’ll just end up annoying them and they may taint your name through one of the pioneering marketing techniques: word-of-mouth. So send out an email to your original list serve, but also include a link where clients can opt out from receiving emails if they wish to do so. This way, your efforts won’t be wasted—you’ll get rid of the people who immediately mark your emails as trash and you’ll have a better chance of catching the attention of people who are actually interested in what you have to sell.
2. Be Aware of Timing. In order to really optimize your email campaign, you have to make sure that you send out your emails at the appropriate time. While different experts vary when it comes to the recommended “best time” to send emails, from my personal experience it’s best to send emails between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. This way, clients can receive emails in the morning, a time of the day where emails are most likely to be read. This is because checking one’s email is typically included in many people’s morning rituals—others include reading the news and checking other social media sites. Some do it as soon as they get up, over a cup of coffee, or as soon as they get to work. But customers are less likely to check emails during the evening (most are tired of straining at a computer all day) while others are busy doing other family activities on the weekend. So mornings or near lunch time is ideal.
Additional Tip: While you may think that sending an email at 3 a.m. might be a better idea so you can get it over with and it’ll be waiting in your customer’s inbox in the morning, this is a bad idea. Most new smartphones have email accounts integrated with the phones—so if you send an email at 3 a.m. you customer will get a notification (often times an obnoxious loud bing) at 3 a.m. You risk waking your customers up and annoying them. This is prompt them to mark the email as trash or worse, request to be off your list serve.
3 . Offer Exclusive Coupons and Discounts. An easy way to make your campaign more attractive is to offer exclusive “deals” to those already on your email list serve. This can range anywhere from 2-for-1 deals, a percentage off a next purchase, or even simply free shipping and handling. Whatever the “deal” is, occasionally offering an incentive to customers via email is a great way to re-spark interest and make some quick sales. Just make sure the coupon, discount, or deal is highlighted boldly at the top of the email. “Above the fold” is generally a term associated with hardcopy marketing techniques and refers to the concept of having the most attention-grabbing information at the top portion of the ad or flyer, but it can be adapted to email marketing too.
4. Get Festive. Lastly, whenever the opportunity arises, switch up the look of your campaign and get festive, especially around some of the bigger holidays like Christmas, Labor Day, the Fourth of the July and Valentine’s Day (which is closely approaching). These emails can simultaneously serve as holiday reminders and get your customer’s “in the mood” to make purchases. This is also a great time to offer suggestions to “gift ideas”—perhaps your product or service is a great gift-giving idea. So make sure these emails stand out from the rest of your typical ones so that customers know this one is special and they need to pay attention.
Byline:
This is a guest post by Eliza Morgan who is a full time blogger. She specializes in writing about business credit cards. You can reach her at: elizamorgan856 at gmail dot com.