Eight Tips to Improve Your Email Marketing Campaign

Unless this is the first McCauley Marketing Services blog you’ve read, you’ve probably heard us say how important it is to have a diverse marketing plan. If you try to rely solely on one strategy (whether it be newspaper ads, online ads, or billboards), you’ll miss out on business. From social media to live networking to print ads to your website, your marketing should work toward helping consumers become familiar with your business and understand what you do so they know who to call when they need your services. In this digital age, email marketing is a strategy that should be incorporated into your marketing plan. But simply using email marketing isn’t enough—there’s an art to making your emails actually attract customers, and the tips below can help.

Give your emails a personal touch. These emails (and any contact you have with a customer) are an opportunity for positive customer relationship management, so let them know you care by sending them a “Welcome!” email when they subscribe, including their name in the subject line and/or body of your emails, and using a more casual, friendly tone.

Use the 80/20 rule. This means that 80% of your email should be text, while 20% should be images. Using enough pictures can make your email more visually appealing by breaking up blocks of text (your readers are busy, and if they see dense writing, they probably won’t read it). Plus, the 80/20 rule can help reduce the odds that your email will be flagged as spam.

Make your email easy to share. Converting readers to customers is great, but it’s even better if they like what they’re reading enough to want to share it with their friends. Make it easy by adding a link to an online version of your email, and by including links to your social media marketing pages, where you’ve posted your email to make it easily sharable.

Give the subject line some thought. This is what makes the reader decide whether or not to open your email, so go with a succinct but enticing subject that tells them what to expect.

Make it easy for consumers to subscribe. You could be sending the best emails the world has ever seen, but people aren’t able to quickly see how to subscribe, they’ll never see those emails and you’ll never reap the benefits. Include easy sign-up forms on your website, and promote your newsletter on social media every once in a while.

Give the reader content they want. This may sound like common sense, but it gets overlooked surprisingly often. Don’t make your email read like one long advertisement. Ask yourself, “What would these readers want to get in their inbox? What information will help them?” Many emailing services allow you to put contacts into groups, so you can send readers targeted emails about events in their area or services they’ve expressed interest in.

Email marketing can be a complex endeavor—there’s a delicate balance between emails that are too frequent and too rare, too wordy and too brief, too sales-driven and too informational. The place that emails hold in your marketing plan depends upon researching your target audience and your competitors. To start discussing how we can help your company put together a successful marketing plan, schedule a meeting with McCauley Marketing Services. Or, for more marketing tips, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.