We have some top tips to make the most of this marketing tool…

If you have a well-established and effective marketing strategy, we hope you have discovered that email marketing can work really well for your business and quantifiably boost sales. Today’s email marketing systems make the whole process cheap, fast, streamlined and relatively straightforward, giving easily measurable results.

If you are not convinced, this might be a good time to consider using professional help to ensure your email strategy is working hard for you. Ideally social media and email should be working in tandem to boost your sales, with content and a tone of voice that is consistent throughout.

When you are using targeted email to help increase your sales, here are some points to consider…

Is your style and layout consistent?

You want your email to look and feel familiar to your reader. They are far more likely to open it if they expect your message and recognise it, so always be consistent. Establish your style and layout and stick to it.

We find that a clear, uncluttered layout works best, with every call-to-action obvious and well-positioned. Also, a strong image that excites or intrigues your customer is likely to draw them in more than mere words! Why not experiment with a little A/B testing? Send one image to half your database, another to the rest and monitor which gets the best response.

Have you got the best possible subject line?

You have fractions of a second to persuade someone to open your email, rather than ignore or delete it and your subject line is crucial to their decision. The internet is full of articles and reports providing tips, tricks and theories for creating effective subject lines and a lot of the email marketing software providers also have tools to assist. But, the truth is there is no magic formula that will work every time. The aim is to have your subject line displayed in full on the widest possible range of mobile devices. You need to consider keywords and tone, and your subject line should be short and pithy. Most mobiles display around 35 characters in portrait and 75 in landscape, so aim to put the keywords or important words at the beginning of the line. There is also evidence that personalising the subject line by using the reader’s name still works well.

Are you sending it to the right people?

Your customer database is one of your greatest assets, and opt-in email marketing is the way to make the most of it. Ensure you have the recipient’s permission (especially with GDPR around the corner) so that customers are expecting your email and are ready to engage with you. Apart from the obvious benefits, this will help ensure your emails don’t end up in the spam mail box. It is also vital that you regularly cleanse your database of old, unresponsive addresses to keep it up to date and make it easy for people to unsubscribe if they want to.

Are you open to last minute changes?

Try to be flexible to reflect the prevailing mood. If you are planning to send out an email promoting the joys of spring, and in particular new garden furniture, and you wake up to snow – stop! Rewrite it to reflect the cold weather and make your communication relevant to today. You have to be part of what is happening right now. The same goes for piggy-backing current news or trends, if they are relevant.

80/20 rule for blogs and newsletters

In a previous blog we looked at the 80/20 rule for social media and it applies equally well to email marketing, which enables you to deliver carefully targeted information and insights that will be hugely valuable to your actual and potential customers. 80% of your newsletter and blog should entertain, inform and educate your reader, keeping sales messages to just 20% of the content. This will keep providing valuable information to the people who sign up for your newsletter without an initial intention to buy anything. We all know what it feels like to be collared by an overly zealous sales assistant when we go into a shop to browse. Be careful not to make your email recipients feel that way or they will unsubscribe before you can say, “hang on!”

Don’t be one and done

We’re all guilty of getting busy and neglecting some marketing tasks, but the more people hear from you with valuable content, the more they will actually want to see you appearing in their inbox.  And the key word there is ‘valuable’ – make your emails something the subscribers look forward to because it’s useful or fun.  Think of email marketing like a regular coffee date with a friend and not just a thing to do when you have some big news.

We can help

If you would like to explore how we can help you make your email marketing work harder to boost your sales, please get in touch. We can revitalise your customer communications with fresh ideas based on our extensive, practical experience, and help turn those elusive prospects into loyal customers.

For example, our client Kristina Botterill of The Pamper Pod in Brighton worked with us for two years on her email marketing campaigns, alongside Facebook marketing.  We designed a Mailchimp template for her, made some website edits and created her monthly email campaigns. She said;

“I have been very happy with the weekly Facebook posts and regular newsletters to my client base. I have found it particularly useful to think ahead and plan activities around seasonal events such as Mother’s Day, Valentines, summer holidays etc. and it has felt much more structured to have a plan for the year rather than reacting to events as they occur. I have seen an increase in bookings in direct response to the campaigns“. – Kris, The Pamper Pod

Rachael Dines, Chartered Marketer, Shake It Up Creative