Email marketing can be one of the most cost-effective means of reaching your customers, an effective strategy starts with getting your email noticed among the sea of electronic communications. Here are four clever ways to connect with your customers through email.
Email marketing can be one of the most cost-effective means of reaching your customers, but given that the New York Times estimates that corporate workers get at 105 emails each day, an effective strategy starts with getting your email noticed among the sea of electronic communications. Here are four clever ways to connect with your customers through email.
1. Tease with a provocative email.
An email’s subject line is akin to a headline in a newspaper article: To catch reader attention, it must be relevant, interesting, and to the point. Before you send out your next email, don’t just tell people what it is with stale phrases like “coupon inside” or, “new product announcement”; consider what the email ultimately does for the recipient. In the case of a coupon, for example, telling them the actual dollar amount they stand to save—and presenting the coupon once they open the email may be more impactful to your click through rate efficacy. Even if you’re simply sharing great “insider” content, tease them with the ultimate “payoff,” whether the information is geared toward making them feel more beautiful, creative, healthy-- or more wealthy, in the subject line.
2. Ask your readers what they think.
The fact that it’s free and easy to use isn’t the only reason that social media has become a powerful form of marketing for small businesses; it has everything to do with the fact that its two-way communication facilitates critical customer relationship building that leads to loyalty, and referrals. Instead of just delivering an email and telling them your message, think about ways you can get them involved, and invite them to share opinions on the topic of conversation to other social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Instagram.
3. Say less, show more.
You may have a lot you want to tell your audience—but consider using more white space, and fewer words. Additionally, using color to communicate a mood, and the desired call to action, can be an emotionally impactful way to reach readers through email. If your promoting a new line of product that involves exotic or exclusive ingredients, for example, enhance design elements in your email with purple to evoke such a mood. If the email message is practical in nature, such as apologizing for a customer service snafu or announcing a change in prices or policy, stick to grays, blues, and browns to communicate intellect and stability. If you want customers to buy, integrating yellow and orange hues into email design communicates a carefree and airy mood.
4. Take advantage of professional tools.
The key to effective email marketing as a small business is to have a strategy and purpose to your messages, including when you send them. Though you probably don’t want to bombard customers with emails every day, you’ll benefit by building some kind of predictability to your email releases, whether they arrive in the inbox every Sunday morning, Friday afternoon, or the first of each month. If you don’t have enough worthy content to share on a regular schedule (or the time to develop it), turn to technology! Scoop.it, a content curating publishing platform, recently announced a new functionality that works in tandem with the email marketing tool MailChimp, allowing you to create professional, magazine-worthy newsletters using a variety of content from sources you select from the web—in addition to the option to include your own proprietary posts and promotions. The best part? Both offer free basic subscriptions.
