I was just talking to a Chamber member who was interested in taking advantage of our discounted E-mail marketing agreement with Constant Contact (members can get a 20% discount off of a six-month contract, or 25% off of a full-year). He eagerness to get started reminded me of something: despite the effectiveness of Social Media, E-mail marketing remains a powerful and effective way of getting your message out - provided that you do it right.
Here are some tips to do just that:
1. Use a professional service: A professional service can do things that you just cannot do on your own, including allowing for opt-outs, tracking statistics, automatically importing your website design/color scheme, creating an attractive template to use, and more. This works a lot better than anything you could design on your own in Outlook!
2. Get permission - or else: Under most circumstances, you do have to get permission from someone before adding them to an E-mail list - otherwise, you risk violating the CAN-SPAM act. This could get you fined, or worse! Also, always make sure that you have a method that allows people the opportunity to opt-out of getting your E-mails.
3. Content matters: You have to sell in an E-mail marketing campaign, but don't let that be the only thing you try to do. As always, provide value to your E-mail blast - give tips, provide advice, etc - and also have an easy to find, actionable way by which your potential customers can take advantage of your services. Using your E-mail too frequently for sales with dilute its effectiveness.
4. Have realistic expectations: Are only 25% of your customers opening your E-mail? Don't worry - that's pretty good!! The amount varies from industry to industry, but generally speaking, having more than a 15-25% open rate is great.
5. Subject lines matter: Be straightforward and don't try too had to sell. Don't use all caps, don't use too many exclamation points, and be grammatically correct. Your subject line will largely determine if your E-mail is opened - here's some more info on effective subjects.
Those are some of our thoughts - what about you? Any good tips to share?
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