Whether you are new in email marketing for small businesses or you are a veteran who is working for a company that sends out 100.000 emails in a month, there are certain policies that need to be followed to optimize your email campaign. Call them the commandments of email marketing. Here are some ideas on how to improve the efficiency of your emails.
Things you should be doing in your email marketing campaign
Newsletter sign up
Start by getting permission for sending emails to recipients through an application for a newsletter or by getting an explicit permit offline. Developing a positive link with the recipients is the most important step towards helping your emails reach somebody’s inbox. Don’t tear down the reputation of the company by using a too aggressive strategy of sending emails. Instead, be committed to creating a quality list and the long term results will be significant.
The sender field
Make sure that the emails are clearly marked coming from a person or company that has a connection to the recipient. If you use a sender field that the recipient doesn’t recognize, that can make the sign off, even if they are interested in your services. Once you decide that you will put in this field, don’t change it in every email, you want to establish a connection with your buyers, and that can’t happen if you change your contact all the time.
Signing off
Give your customers a simple and obvious way to sign off from your mailing list and quickly remove them if they have signed off. You don’t need the negative publicity of being marked as a spammer.
Message title (subject)
Make sure that the title of the message has something to do with the content of the email. When the recipients think they are being tricked into opening an email, they don’t like it and begin signing off. The title of the message should have 40-50 character that have something to do with the content of the email.
Your address
Give a valid address in every email so the recipients can easily contact you or your company. It follows the law and it gives another way of communicating with your customers, which is a great opportunity to prove your values.
Content
You should only send relevant content to your recipients, content they asked for. If you start sending offers that are not relevant to them, the chances of them signing off are greater. Be creative and the percentage of opened emails will surely rise for you.
Frequency
Create a constant link with the people on your targeted mailing lists. Building a mutually useful email connection takes time and effort. Send emails regularly. Everybody reacts differently. Somebody enjoys getting emails daily, somebody loves getting them weekly, some even monthly. See what works with your customers or business partners, and adapt to that.
Address book
You should ask your recipients to add you in their address book so they can recognize your emails. In many cases once you get in there, your emails will be directly forwarded to the inbox, instead of going to the spam folder.
Testing
Testing, test, test. Segment your list, try presenting different offers, use different fields of subjects and send emails on different days, at different times. That will establish what works best for your list.
Pictures
Combine pictures and text in the emails. Then, if the pictures are removed from the email because of the preferences of the recipients, they still have the text they can read. If you have to use pictures as a dominant way of communication, put a link on the top of the email that will allow people to read the message easily.
Spam filters
Put your email through a spam filter before you start your campaign. If the words stick in the filter, replace them with alternatives. A simple trial period will greatly reduce the risk of having your email marked as spam.
These are some great things that you should definitely be doing to boost your email marketing campaign on your own if you don’t use some of the best email marketing services for your small business. But, as always, there are some things you definitely should not be doing. For example, use cheap email marketing services, email blasting or spamming somebody’s inbox. Read some examples of how it looks.
Example 1 – Subject: Conversions
“Hi my name is Garett and I am part of an established web design agency. My team and I specialize in helping our client’s businesses run easier with our fully managed web solutions. I notice that most business owners are still trying to get up to speed on all the changes that have happened with digital marketing and web development. This is understandable as running a business takes most of your time and energy. If you are looking to stand out from your competitors and are interested in how your site can help you do that, I would be happy to have a call and show you some of the ways have helped our client’s sites accomplish this. This consultation is of course free and there is no obligation to use our services. I will be happy to answer all your questions and also show you some ideas I have for your site as well. Just let me know what time works for you to have this call.
Thank you, Garett
I offer this free consultation to give you the opportunity to see what we can do for you and also so you can see if we could be a good fit to work together.”
Example 2 – Subject: Question
“Hi, my name is Kris, my team and I are helping our clients get more sales to their sites by taking advantage of the new Google algorithm change. I wanted to reach out to you to see if you have been thinking of taking advantage of this recent change to increase the traffic to your site. If so, I would be happy to have a call with you and share some of my recent findings with this new update from Google. As we look at helping you take advantage of this opportunity, we are offering a free analysis and consultation about your site and your competitor’s data. This free consultation will help you understand what has changed and what needs to happen to out rank your competition. Our SEO and digital marketing programs generally start around $1,500/month. This provides us the necessary resources to do the job right and confidently predict a successful campaign. Even if we do not work together in the end, I think that the valuable information I will share with you on the call will point you in the right direction with latest techniques in online marketing. What time works for you to have this call? I look forward to speaking with you.
Kris
**The reason we do not accept clients under $1,500/mo. is because we have found that under this budget it is difficult to deliver real results, and ethically we do not want to accept money from businesses we don’t think we can provide real value to. We aim to develop long-term client relationships and try to avoid client turnover that results in poor customer experiences and wasted money.”
Example 3 – Subject: Options
“Hi I’m Shelby. I am a web design expert, my team and I create visually appealing, easy to manage and maintain websites that are responsive on mobile devices. If you have been or are interested in looking at options to help your site stand out from the crowd I would be happy to speak with you and give you some ideas and tips that will help your site. I will go an extra mile to make sure my clients are happy and satisfied. I have been doing this for a long time and am interested in building long term relationships where I can provide real value to my clients. Let me know if you are interested in speaking about how my team and I can help your site. I will come ready with some ideas and research on your site and will be more than happy to answer any questions that you may have.
Thanks, Shelby”
Example 4 – Subject: Do you need website traffic?
“Hello there,
I work for the leading website traffic service at *******.com. Have you ever wondered how you can get thousands or millions of visitors to a business or website? I wanted to quickly check on whether you’ve had the chance to evaluate *******.
If you need thousands or millions of quality website visitors that will:
- Boost your web visitors and page views greatly
- Lower your bounce rate to as low as 50%
- Increase your visitor’s session duration up to 10+ minutes
- Increase your ad impressions and revenue
- Improve your alexa rank…
We have delivered billions of visitors to thousands of websites before. Over 100,000 webmasters trust us and have used our service to grow their websites, blogs, online stores, small businesses and video views. You can too!
For low cost plans starting at just $10, please visit: *******.com
Thanks for your time and consideration.
———————–
Jerry”
Example 5 – Subject: First page rankings on Google
“We can put your website on 1st page of Google to drive relevant traffic to your site. Let us know if you would be interested in getting detailed proposal. We can also schedule a call & will be pleased to explain our services in detail. We look forward to hearing from you soon. Thanks!”
Example 6 – Subject: Website transformation
“Message Greetings, my name is Jason. I own a California based web design firm that specializes in helping small to mid sized businesses to get the most out of their websites without having to break the bank in the process. Our budget friendly web design process has allows us to build, update and modernize our client’s sites and also help them target their customer base faster and more effectively online. If you have been thinking about updating your website or adding features that will allow you to automate parts of your business, I would be happy to analyze what your site is currently doing and present you with some solutions that have helped our clients increase sales and save time. I offer this analysis completely free and at no cost to you. Just let me know what time works for you to speak and I will be in touch and provide my findings and present you with some solutions and tricks that have helped our clients. Even if we do not end up working together in the end I will at least be able to point you in the right direction. I am always happy to help. Thanks, Jason”
