Email marketing is a crucial component of any comprehensive marketing strategy, driving qualified traffic to your site. Following on from part I of our Email Marketing series, here are a few additional tips to drive qualified traffic to your site:
1. Choose the right email marketing platform
There are a number of email marketing platforms out there, here are a couple of our favourites.
- Unlimited mailing lists
- RSS-to-email content distribution
- Whitelisted at major ISPs to help avoid spam filters
- Google Analytics integration
- Marketing automation – Visually map out your marketing strategy from start to finish. Create triggers based on timing, behavior or demographics to deliver the right message at the right time without lifting a finger.
Try to find an email marketing platform that enables you to track customer behaviour, measure, analyse and manage your campaigns. Track what works well and tweak your campaigns accordingly.
2. Assess the ideal newsletter length and frequency
Carrying out a customer survey can be a useful exercise when attempting to determine the length and most appropriate broadcast timing of an email marketing newsletter. So ask your community when they would prefer to receive it, you can also ask this question on your various social platforms if they’re fairly active.
Certain days and times of day might also help to optimise your open and click-through rates. Catch them at a time that is convenient to them. Send out a sales offer at the right time and your emails will attract a higher open and click-through rate, leading potentially to an spike in sales.
Sending it out at the wrong moment could have the opposite effect, and could result in being accused of sending out spam.
2. Content: understand what works best
Prep your analyst! Research and asking your customers and prospects short questions every time they contact you, and by testing out your email marketing communications. Uncover what works best and what doesn’t. Avoid sending your target audience irrelevant offers and information.
4. Comply with Data Protection legislation
Compliance to the Data Protection Act is vital. Opt in your prospects and customers to any communications you send out – even if you have purchased a pre-approved email marketing contact list. Do this by sending out an email, requesting permission to communicate with them through their preferred channels.
Give them with a reason and an incentive to receive email communications from you and one for sharing their contact data too. Also, an opportunity to opt out and unsubscribe from your customer databases.
However, it’s still legitimate to ask someone why they wish to opt out. You might be able to resolve any issues or concerns that are affecting your relationship with a particular customer or prospect. You could either gain a sale or create an opportunity to make a customer more loyal to your brand.
5. Opt for a multi-channel approach
Email marketing shouldn’t be seen in isolation. Thanks to cloud-based technologies which allow you to access a plethora of marketing applications from the web, even small and medium-sized business can access a wide range of enterprise-level tools to permit a multi-channel and campaign management approach to your marketing campaigns.
