Business owners should have email marketing as part of the tools in their marketing tool box. Why? Done correctly it can yield amazing results. The problem is that we find many business owners don’t use their email marketing, or their email list, to its fullest potential nor do they treat their list right.
Having an opt in on your website is a great way to gather names, but if you’re gathering them and not marketing to them correctly, you’re wasting both your time and their time. What can you do to make certain your email marketing is effective and won’t fail?
Here are our best tips:
- The subject line is boring or too long, or both. You don’t want to have a “click bait” subject line, but you do
want to grab their attention. Remember, your enewsletter is vying for attention with all of the other enewsletters that your client is signed up for. A headline aka subject line needs to be compelling and one that your client will not be able to resist. Spend as much time, if not more, on your subject line as you do on your content. - Keep in mind that more than one third of your clients are accessing the content you send them from their mobile devices. If you’re not using an email delivery system that isn’t mobile responsive, they will move onto an enewsletter that is.
- The enewsletter needs to be relevant to your client. If they signed up for your list because it promised, “Top tricks to be more effective in your business” and you’re sending them information about, “Ways to travel with your dog” they will not open your messages. Why would they? They didn’t sign up for what you’re offering.
- Buy me. Buy me! It’s a given that if someone signs up for your enewsletter that you will, at some point, market to them. We urge you to make the content relevant and not market in every message. A rule of thumb is 80% great content 20% “buy me!” content.
- Who are you… really? Are you really ABC Company or are you John or Jane Doe of ABC Company? “Be” a person, not an entity. Inject personality into your enewsletter prose.
- It’s not just about the numbers. In the past individuals were so proud when they could announce, “I have 10,000 followers on Twitter.” Okay. But what does that mean? Are they relevant followers or just followers? If you have an email list of 10,000 followers, great. But, of those 10,000 followers, how many are your ideal client? How many signed up just to get that killer free offer you promised? How many of those 10,000 actually open and read your enewsletter? The numbers aren’t the be all and end all. It makes more sense to be proud of having 100 engaged enewsletter readers than it is to have 10,000 unengaged ones.
Are you using an enewsletter to market to your audience? What is your open rate? Do you wish you had an email marketing strategy, but haven’t implemented one yet? We can help. Contact our team for information.