Email best practices

5 email marketing tips to take businesses to the next level

Email marketing has proved itself a powerful tool for engaging existing customers and generating more business. Make the most of it with these tips.

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Over the years, email marketing has proved itself a powerful tool for engaging existing customers and generating more business. A recent survey of consumer habits and perceptions reflects the essential and growing role email plays in everyday lives, and yet another revelation by eMarketer, email marketing was ranked the best digital marketing platform for retaining customers in 2016. With so much potential, who wouldn’t want to tap into a business-boost strategy like that?

Email marketing tips to take your business to the next level

Nearly every digital marketer acknowledges the role of email marketing in fostering business development and promoting customer relationship. However, not so many people appreciate effective use of this marketing strategy. Even more, many businesses simply send out routine emails without analysing their returns on investments. Just like any other marketing strategy, it is beneficial appreciating the ground rules and playing by them to reap big. Even more, using customer behaviour to boost your email marketing efforts is important. So, how do you do it?

1. Your Contacts Deserve Some Space

It’s safe to assume  your customers would like to hear from you; that is why they have subscribed to your emails in the first place. Over the years, you have been able to boost your returns on investments, thanks to the steady email marketing campaigns you have staged. However, overfishing exists. The tendency to overuse our marketing strategies is overwhelming. After a successful debut with their search engine efforts, many are tempted to capitalise on more emails to achieve similar or even better results. It doesn’t work that way, very soon you will have to face it squarely with the law of diminishing returns.

You do not have to bombard your customers with consistent emails. Giving your customers a break, more often, wipes out that notion that you are harassing them through promotional emails. There might be so much to share and a lot more news to excite the customers regarding your recent innovations, but sending two emails a day won’t solve the problem.

Instead of blindly sending the email messages, think of following a schedule based on customer response. If it is a weekly email plan, stick to that. It you promise to send them three emails within a week, kindly let it be so. For efficiency, you could to include a schedule form in your welcoming email. With this, you can have an idea of how often your clients would like to be contacted.

2. Don’t Solely Rely On Automation

Email automation has made things easier in the digital marketing realm; no doubts about that. It is an essential component of every great email marketing campaign. However, you need not to rely so much on it. It should be a pivotal element in your email marketing strategy, but not the only one. Yet many marketers let email automation replace them; that is a massive mistake. How will you respond to the specific needs of a group of clients, if you are relying so much on automation? Embrace automation technology, but do not let it thwart the very reason you went for it.

3. Brace Yourself for Mobile Technology

For some companies, learning it the hard way is the option to take. It doesn’t have to be so with yours. A large percentage of your customers have their email inboxes synchronised with their mobile devices. What this means is that a greater percentage of the marketing emails you sent are read on mobile platforms . Are your emails optimised for mobile reading? That is the big question you should be asking yourself. Regardless of the device your customer is reading the email on  it should allow enhanced viewership by automatically adjusting  to fully fit the screen. Luckily for marketers, mobile optimisation is easier, now than ever before. You only need to take advantage of it.

4. Consider Reforming The ‘Opt Out’ Menace

More than ever before, customers are opting out of subscription emails. If you didn’t have an idea, 54% of clients’ inboxes are dominated by promotional emails. You wouldn’t want this to be any worse than it might appear, right? Many people are getting tired of the low quality emails filling their inboxes so they opt out, even from the ‘important emails’. Instead of presenting your recipients with two options of either staying in or walking away, introduce opting down. This means implementing the break strategy. With this, the customers can choose how often they would like to receive communications from you. Even more, they will get to decide for how long they would like to be out of periodic email list. In the end, you will be able to retain a greater chunk of your customers.

5. Keep It Professional

You need not to have been in the marketing arena long enough to know that there are a number of rules that regulate all commercial emails, like the CAN-SPAM Act in the U.S. Ignoring some simple set of rules enlisted on this might not only land you in trouble, but can also dent your hard-earned reputation. For instance, using a deceptive subject line to have your email recipients dig through the emails isn’t professional. Keep your subject line clear and relevant to the message therein. The email title shouldn’t suggest anything contrary to the content of the email.

Yet again, you should not ignore customers unsubscribe requests, if they indicate they’d like to opt out. It might be painful, but the widely applicable corporate rule still stands; you can’t win them all. Honour the recipient’s opt out in a timely manner as recommended by the law. Thereafter, you can work on better ways of making your promotional email content more informative and appealing to subsequent customers.

Conclusion

Many of your customers would love to stay in touch with you, even more, through emails. However, marketers should do it in a way that provides value to their customers. It will not only maintain healthy relationships with the existing clients but also help bring on board new recipients who will be able to stay on your mailing list as long as possible!

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This post was written by Derek Iwasiuk. Dereck runs a national digital search engine optimization firm headquartered in Minneapolis. You can also follow him on Twitter @Diwasiuk

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