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Top Ten Tips For Small Business Email Marketing In The Uk
The internet plays a key role in marketing strategy. Many small to medium sized businesses (SME's) are choosing to integrate email and website marketing to increase their sales and customer retention.
In the past it was expensive and time consuming for SME's to run their own email marketing campaigns. Today, they have the opportunity to use state of the art email marketing software at affordable prices. |
Many SME's are choosing to use online email marketing software. This allows them to design, deliver and track their own branded email marketing campaigns from secure online accounts. Online email marketing software removes the need to manage the delivery system and manual opt-out processes. The Email Service provider will also manage any issues with blacklisting, bounce management and delivery to traditionally difficult Internet Service Providers like Hotmail and AOL.
SME's are choosing online software because it gives them the flexibility to manage their own email marketing without the worry of managing the in-house hardware required to successfully deliver emails on mass.
DestiNet currently provides its NewZapp online email marketing software to hundreds of SME's across the UK. Here are their top ten tips for email marketing success in Small to Medium sized businesses:
1) Use the same branding styles through all your online and offline media. Remember that this is not limited to your logo, don't' forget about font styles, sizes, colours and your writing style. Use an email template to help maintain a consistent brand image. A consistent branding style encourages seamless transition from email to website. This can be easily achieved by using the same headers and footers on both your website and your email marketing;
2) Use hyperlinks in your emails to drive traffic straight to your website. Top left is often the prime spot for your most important link. Try to send each link to a specific landing page that relates to the link itself. Set the readers expectations by explaining what they are clicking through to. For example linking from the words "read more about our summer specials" tells the reader what to expect in advance. This helps manage the reader's expectation and ensures that they have a pleasant reading experience.
3) Ask your customers which type of communication they prefer to receive. Do they want to receive offer emails, email newsletters or both? If you offer them the choice early on they will respond better in the long term;
4) Ask your customers how often they want to receive your communication. Over or under communicating can dramatically impact on your read and click through rates;
5) Be an expert in your sector. Don't be afraid to show off your knowledge. Especially if you work in a niche market. Your customers will welcome your advice and this can be especially helpful in maintaining customer loyalty;
6) Send emails during the day to avoid the early morning inbox clutter. Tuesday and Thursday between 10:00am and 12:00pm are especially popular with business to business email marketers;
7) Track online campaigns to help calculate return-on-investment. This will help you safe guard your investment and more importantly will help develop your future email marketing campaigns;
8) Review every campaign to see what works best and who it works for. Which links were most popular and who read the most? this will help you write about topics that interest your customers;
9) Remember that you can always make a sentence shorter. This is especially important in email copy. Readers may scan read your email, so it's important you keep it short and to the point. Use short introductions on the main email then offer a "click for more" option for those who wish to read on;
10) Grow your list using online email signup forms. These can be added to your website with relative ease. You can also offer incentives for signing up. For example a free whitepaper or a money off voucher. These promotions can help increase your database at relatively low cost.
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