Simple to execute and with a low financial barrier to entry, email marketing has such an impressive reach because everyone's got email. Most likely, customers have multiple email addresses--and they share email content socially. No matter what your line of business, there are benefits to integrating email into your marketing toolkit. If your business only needs a simple campaign, you can get things up and running without any outside help, but for an elaborate campaign, ongoing sales push or e-marketing strategy, consider hiring an email marketing agency to get the marketing started on the right track.
Benefits of Email Marketing
Low costs aside, there are lots of reasons to include email among your marketing strategies. Marketers love email because:
- You own your email list
- Users opt-in and have the ability to opt-out
- Everyone has an email address
- Email helps you keep existing customers, so you spend less time and money attracting new ones
- You can communicate instantly with your users, especially about sales or promotions
- You can direct traffic to your website
Marketing Strategies
1. Grow Your List
The more people on your list, the more people you reach each time you send an email. To grow your list, integrate it into your website, into emails (to reach those who receive a forward) and more. Incorporate a subscribe button at the top of your webpage or blog, where viewers will see it. You should always focus at least some attention on growing your list.
2. Create a Visually Stunning Template
Good design gets attention. Create a visually sleek template for email messages that incorporates branding materials, including your logo and business colors. Use legible, attractive font; no one wants to read a marketing message in Comic Sans, or, heaven forbid, Papyrus. To keep old customers engaged, change your template every year or two.
3. Get More with Giveaways
More traffic and more subscribers, that is. Incorporate promos into email marketing by raffling off a free book, conference or fundraising admission, or prize to a random entry -- and make an email address the ticket to entry.
4. Spread Your Wisdom
You have a lot to offer email subscribers, but don't give it away all at once. Create a short, for-fee or for-free course for email subscribers. Send a portion of the course every day or every week. Regular communication keeps your members engaged, and keeps you fresh in their mind. When funny, useful content is forwarded to friends, you may gain more fans.
5. Remember Your Purpose
Whatever your purpose, target your content toward it. If you want to gain customers, focus on building that list by hosting giveaways, creating content that invites the reader to opt-in and drives her to your website, and so on. If you want to become the authority, send informative email posts that entertain more and sell less. Keep your purpose in mind to drive your email marketing.
As you grow your list, work through these strategies to develop targeted customer content that serves your needs. The effort you spend building your list and creating your template pays off down the road, when you can customize a new message in minutes and reach hundreds. It can seem like a lot to handle, but once you've got the basics down, creating new buzz is as simple as hitting the send button.
If your business only needs a simple campaign, you can get things up and running without any outside help, but for an elaborate campaign