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Email campaigns and newsletters are still important and cost-effective. However, today, email campaigns must be targeted, relevant, and break through the noise and hurdles of our inboxes. Gone are the days of effectively reaching your audience with mass emails. To be effective, with everything that everyone is receiving, you need to really answer the following questions:
1. Did you find the right contacts? Before you even start the email process, you must find the right contacts for outreach. It’s crucial that you identify your desired audiences. 2. Are the email addresses accurate? An email will not be received unless you have the right data. Therefore, you must have strong data and find any that may be missing. This will ensure the right email gets to the right contact; simple human error can switch letters in an address. 3. Will your email be viewed or put into spam? If your email went to the correct address, did it hit their inbox or their spam? Check your emails against an email spam system before you hit send. New email spam systems pop up all the time, so go online and search for tools that can check to see if the email that you’re sending looks like spam. If it does look like spam, then it gets scored like spam and it’s never going to be seen. Email spam systems break your email down, telling you what’s wrong, and allowing you to fix it. 4. Will your emails be read? Spam emails can also be uncovered by simply reading them. It’s fairly obvious when an email looks like spam. During a webinar with Cirrus Insight, RingLead CEO Donato Diorio did a spam test, where he showed four emails and asked the audience for the one that wasn’t spam. He displayed each email on screen for 10 seconds. More than 50% found the non-spam email. As humans, we’re able to determine whether an email is spam by the visual structure … in seconds. 5. Is the email well written? Writing emails to potential customers can be one of the most difficult tasks for any marketer. Remember grammar is important and always be professional. 6. Did you grab their attention? Now we shift our focus to the content of the email. It’s reaching your audience, but is it interesting? Should they care? Are you targeting the right demographic? The message, audience, and content need to grab attention. 7. When do you plan to send the email? There really is a right and wrong time to send an email. Sometimes, the timing doesn’t matter. But do you know the difference? A detail as seemingly trivial as the timing of an email can determine whether a lead responds. Take a few minutes to do some research and it may make all the difference. 8. Do you have tracking in place and are you going to look at it? We’re in an age where sending emails blindly will no longer cut it. In order to thrive, you need to know which email strategies are most effective. The way to do that is through analytics. Create dashboards showing email opens and customer engagement and check it often. Only then will you be able to correctly follow-up.
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I have always been a fan of email marketing, and newsletters are still at the top of my offerings to almost all my clients.
E-mail is an action-oriented medium in general. There is the idea that our e-mails are supposed to be, something you have been expecting from someone, something amusing and entertaining, or coupons and specials encouraging you to buy something. But we also expect to do something following consumption of the content, a call to action. What we are forgetting is the newsworthiness of email. I have been teaching my clients for years to educate their consumers and prospects. Give them the information they want to read. Do not bore people with more information on your company or just a plain old ad or coupon. Of course, there’s a limit to how much media people will allow being pushed in their face via email. The wrong content can make an email newsletter into a product that is incredibly annoying. But the right content can make the newsletter into a habit. And nothing excites a business like the chance to create a profitable compulsion. One reason email marketing has value for business owners is that it's an easy way to start reaching consumers without investing a lot in technology or software. Email marketing isn't something marketers do just because they can and it's easy. The tactic is highly effective at helping business owners and consumers stay connected and informed. In fact, consumers often seek out email marketing campaigns from their favorite businesses and local stores. This goes beyond coupons. There is a real value to staying connected to customers and email marketing makes that easy to do. It's also easy to customize and integrate into other marketing tactics. The versatility of email marketing is another reason that marketers keep this tactic in their marketing toolbox. Depending on the depth of the email database and the skill of the crafter, email marketing messages can range from simple to complex. Email marketing can also be utilized with just about any other marketing tactic, which makes email an important part of any integrated marketing campaign. And email marketing is still effective and inexpensive. To sum up, the best reason to use email marketing: It's easy, effective, and inexpensive. Email marketing allows business owners to reach a large number of consumers at a rate of pennies per message. For small-business owners on a budget, this makes it a great choice. You don't have to take my word for it. A joint study from Shop.org and Forrester Research found that 85 percent of U.S. retailers consider email marketing one of the most effective customer acquisition tactics. The point of all this is that email may be an old tactic, but it remains a vital one. It's relatively easy to do a newsletter, so there's no excuse for business owners to not be taking advantage of it. Understandably, business owners may be too busy to handle the email marketing on their own, but this is something with which any marketing professional (wink, wink) can help.  These are tough times and most, if not all, industries are being impacted in some way. The world is frightened and wary. There are many things that businesses must consider when it comes to the Coronavirus COVID-19 and somewhere near the top should be your marketing and sales efforts. While it’s understandable that this is not your top priority, if you choose this time to lose sight of marketing when the virus is over, it will be that much more difficult to recover. It is important to remember in your marketing and sales process that everyone's first thought right now is about their health and their family. After that comes business. Always be sensitive and empathize with your prospects.
Let’s look at how your business can move forward and possibly grow during the virus. Move everything online The most obvious issue with COVID-19 is that we’re not out shaking hands and meeting people, and this may go on for a substantial amount of time. Because of that, local events are all canceled and conferences all around the world are being canceled. People are beginning to worry about business events all the way into the Fall. Companies that rely on in-person interactions to grow need to focus much more heavily on digital marketing and inbound marketing tactics. That means developing a strategy and executing immediately. There is no time to delay here. Inbound marketing can take some time to start showing big results so the sooner you can start, the better. Consider quick-win opportunities As I mentioned, inbound marketing takes time, but there are some quick wins. Start looking into utilizing pay-per-click advertising through Google as well as social media networks like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Paid advertising can produce some quick results while the other inbound marketing tactics are ramping up. You may also want to consider targeted outreach on LinkedIn, especially if you're in the B2B sector. Do some research on your prospect businesses and then connect with the decision-makers or target persons at those companies. TIP: Don't approach your outreach strictly from a sales standpoint. Be helpful and share content that is important to them. If you educate, you can win. Stay consistent online Consistency is one of the hardest things to keep in times like this, but it's extremely important. Google has made it clear that consistency is a big factor in how they rank. That means that if you've been blogging every Tuesday, it's important to keep blogging every Tuesday. When tough times hit, usually marketing is one of the first things to be evaluated and sales often immediately cut. By cutting your marketing budget, you may save some dollars today, but you'll be sacrificing more dollars later. Consistency is key for ranking and if you give up consistency with inbound marketing, you're going to start losing all you’ve worked for. That can mean your website traffic, your authority, your search engine rankings, even your engagement within social media. This may be your chance to find new and creative ways to reach your target audience. Think outside the box. Take advantage of new opportunities While most people are looking at the Coronavirus as a hardship, for some businesses it can be an opportunity. And regardless of how the opportunity arises, it's your responsibility as a business to capitalize. If your business benefits from everyone being home, or keeps people healthy, or keeps kids entertained while they're out of school, or delivers products to people at home — USE THIS TIME! There is a huge opportunity here and people genuinely need your business. Now is the time to double your marketing and sales initiatives and reach more people. I know this may sound thoughtless or maybe even irrelevant to your business, but I beg you to not make any drastic decisions that will still be affecting you after this virus is over. Keep moving forward and set yourself up now for a great finish to 2020. Contests and sweepstakes are great ways of generating interest and expanding your reach to a target audience. If you want to increase site traffic, reward customers, and/or gain some new leads to add to your marketing efforts, then you might want to consider having a contest or sweepstakes giveaway.
Many people use the terms “contests” and “sweepstakes” as if they were the same. Technically, however, sweepstakes are prize giveaways where the winners are chosen by luck. Contests, on the other hand, draw a winner based on some merit. The person must enter something such as the funniest picture with logo, most moving essay, tastiest recipe, or whatever will be chosen as the winner. Sweepstakes or contests can promote your product and company, expand your current customer base, and gather contact information of potential customers for future marketing. The premise is simple - offer a prize that will entice your preferred target audience to give you their contact information and allow you to communicate with them. I say preferred target audience because sweepstakes and contests also attract people that may not be your target. I recently entered a sweepstakes for a $100 gas card. I was willing to give my name and email address for the chance to win. The rules stated, “The sweepstakes is open to residents of the United States and Canada, age 18 and over” and “Only entries received via the official web entry form will be included in the drawings.” This sweepstakes followed good form with the rules easy to find and read. The sweepstakes were clearly aimed to increase new visits to an attraction by people some distance away and encourage them to stay overnight. However, I am not a target customer. I already visit the attraction regularly, and I will not be purchasing overnight accommodations. It was by accident that I found the sweepstakes when searching for something else. But this is still a success because it engaged me and delivered the message about the weekend and overnight accommodations available. Designing your own contest or sweepstake When you choose to conduct a sweepstakes or contest you will have many choices to make and will need to follow some basic rules.
Rules In the United States, every state establishes its own set of rules for contests and sweepstakes. The main law you need to be aware of when you run a contest or sweepstakes in any U.S. state is the “no purchase necessary law.” This law states that you cannot require users to make a purchase or provide other forms of consideration to enter a sweepstakes where winners are randomly drawn. States have their own rules about what sort of contests or sweeps are legal. This is where the “void where prohibited” clause comes in. The statement gives the company blanket protection against running an illegal contest, without having to research the law in each state. Since social media makes it easier to run contests nationwide, and even internationally, make sure that you are stating exactly where the person must live to enter. Additionally, there are Federal Trade Commission rules about collecting information from children. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) limits and restricts information that may be gathered and how it may be used. “If you operate a commercial Web site or an online service directed to children under 13 that collects personal information from children or if you operate a general audience Web site and have actual knowledge that you are collecting personal information from children, you must comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.” So, plan your contests carefully. Check out other contests and their rules, check your state’s rules, and get some professional advice if you have any questions or concerns.
It is certainly true that Google plays a role in SEO. However, your efforts on the social media site should be about more than gaining followers who don’t interact with your content. Instead, you should be striving to create an environment where fans communicate with each other and your company. You must stay active on the site by sharing content and relevant links, responding to feedback and making connections. Everything should be done with your target audience in mind, so make sure each piece of information is useful.
Myth #2: Social media is becoming the most important aspect of SEO Whether social media sites take over good old fashioned content marketing as the most important aspect of true SEO remains to be seen, but for the time being it should just be another cog in the machine. Search Engine Watch noted that you can’t rely too heavily on social, as it should only be used to back up interesting content. Although certain websites and businesses have found ways to go viral through social sharing, it is not sustainable and often doesn’t lead to long-term success – you need balance to achieve that. Myth #3: The linking conundrum No one denies that links are a valuable way to boost website ranking. However, the days of mindlessly loading up content with links are long gone, and in their place is a strategy that emphasizes quality over quantity. But you shouldn’t go too far with this initiative, which can leave you throwing in citations instead of good links. According to Search Engine Land, it is important to identify the best possible sources and connections, and then using those links and citations to build great content marketing. Myth #4: You need to invest in paid ads to get a better ranking Paid search is another aspect of content marketing that can improve your SEO efforts, as well as the bottom line, but it’s not enough to boost rankings. It was commonly thought that services such as Google AdWords went a long way toward jumping in the ranks, but Google executive Matt Cutts spoke about the truth behind this myth. He claimed that while the search engine would certainly like you to purchase ads, it doesn’t punish those who don’t. Myth #5: Your content can never be improved OK, this might not be a myth as much as it is a common mistake where you become content with everything you have done. Instead of thinking your content marketing strategy is consistently outstanding, take time to evaluate each piece and note areas of possible improvement. Analytics tools can be a huge help as you try to find small details you can improve. Dig through stats such as bounce rate or click-through rate to see what needs improvement and try to pinpoint exactly where you went wrong … or right. Social media sites can be incredibly useful. Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and all the rest have created new means of communication and enabled companies to connect organically with users whose interests are already vetted.
That said, they can also be destructive. The difference lies in the way you use them: If you publish an article on your own website, tweet about it, and post a link on Facebook, that’s fantastic. If you post an article as a Facebook note and then share it, your marketing and outreach are headed for a crash-and-burn moment. Social media: the value of building a tribe We, as businesspeople, understand the value of the connection economy. What we need to focus on is making sure that those connections endure over the years and decades. We do that by providing value and by not cheapening the relationship. We also do it by maintaining connections, and most importantly by not having a middleman. Having 10,000 followers on Facebook, Tumblr, or Twitter is helpful. But having 5,000 subscribers on your email list, that’s much more valuable. Unless I knew a magic spell for converting “likes” and “follows” into email subscribers, I’d take a 100-person email list over a thousand-like Facebook or Twitter page any day of the week. Those emails will still be valid in a year or five. Will their social accounts? Even more important, I know that when I send an email to their inbox, it arrives safe and sound. The same cannot be said for any social networks. The only way to truly own that connection is to write on your proper platform (a website you control or a safe email program) and gather email addresses from members of your tribe. I love the word tribe; it instills a feeling of community. A family in a way that there are common interests and views. Email is enduring It’s been around since the dawn of the Internet. It survived Geocities and Myspace, and it’ll survive Facebook and Twitter. There’s no reason to rely on a social media site when there’s a reliable and consistent contact medium available to you, for free. Almost all — 95 percent — of your address book contacts are not on the same social sites they used a decade ago, but they probably signed up for the new one with the same email address as the first. Social media services are a fantastic way to spread the word and share information, but relying primarily on a publishing platform you do not control can hurt your marketing efforts. While there’s value in social likes, follows, shares, and retweets, those are worth far less, in the big picture, than passionate email subscribers. People on your mailing list will always get your message. They may just skim it, but as long as you’re sending it properly, that email will always land in their inbox. The same can’t be said for most social media sites. Unless they’re on Twitter at the right time … unless you pay Facebook the right amount … unless you’re popular enough on Tumblr … they may never see your content. And that’s a shame, because we know your content, your advice, and your thoughts could impact the right audience. Email subscribers are your friends and email deliverability can grow your business.
Here are some other recent statistics that demonstrate the value of email advertising:
This last statistic may be the most amazing of all. Recent year statistics are not available but I can only imagine the profit increase. When you consider the low investment required to start an email-advertising strategy, the high ROI makes sense. If you’re interested in adding email marketing to your strategy, here are a few tips for developing an email list:
If you’re not tech savvy or if you need help developing an effective email-marketing campaign, consider outsourcing to an email marketing company. They can help design effective templates and recommend strategies that work best. Database Marketing Is for Everyone.
Whether you're a partner in a consulting firm, a contractor or electrician, or CEO of an international conglomerate, database marketing is crucial for your success. Database marketing can be simple or sophisticated. The key is that instead of just having a mailing list of prospective customers or a single list of current customers, you can use a computerized system to evaluate and manage the information more precisely. For example, you may want to send a reminder mailing to every customer twice a year; a monthly mailing or email newsletter to more active customers; and even place a phone call from time to time to your very best customers. Then maybe set up email reminders and news for prospective clients and general contacts. Using a Mix of Marketing Vehicles Historically, database marketing relied overwhelmingly on direct mail. Then increasingly telemarketing had been used. And now there are a slew of better alternatives to consider, including email, fax, social media and text. Particularly for closing sales for higher-ticket goods or services, a combination of several different contact methods may work best. For smaller businesses, email marketing and social media are always the most cost-efficient way to go. Fancy and Expensive Doesn't Always Sell Again and again, I've learned in marketing campaigns that fancy and expensive doesn't always mean better results. Also, once you get into four-color printing the costs are high, so it is very expensive to mail high quality printed materials. TEST, TEST, TEST In database marketing, changing even a small variable can wildly change your results. So trying different combinations and making sure that you are tracking ROI are key to these efforts. |
Boost Your BusinessMaria NovakI have over 35 years' experience in Marketing Small Businesses. Categories
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