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Email Marketing - 4 Things You Need To Do Right
Email marketers have their tasks cut out. Do well, or else, leave the job. The field of email marketing is tricky, dicey and laced with pit falls. SPAM is everywhere and getting spam trapped is a huge pain. Here's what - we as email marketers need to use every trick in the book to reach our recipients and the game has only gotten harder.
Millions of emails are sent every day. It's a veritable email deluge. Recipients have gotten smarter. They don't want to read emails which do not make sense. It may seem daunting but the truth of the matter is that if you adhere to a strict check list of essential points, it becomes easy. These points are standard, pretty mundane and not technical in any way. This is what makes email marketing such a roaring success for a select few who do go by these guidelines.
We at Procuredata have been working alongside some of the best email marketers in business today. We understand the nitty-gritties of it, and go to great lengths enabling our users to enjoy the fruits of our experience and dedication. We have formulated for you a set of 4 essential elements you must have to achieve a successful email marketing results.
Get started with the basic plan
A marketer without a plan is a like a ship without a destination. The ride maybe enjoyable but there comes a point when it all becomes a wasted effort. Create a calendar that is able to give you a real picture of the goals you want to achieve. Then juxtapose it with your email marketing plan and see that they complement each other. One of the biggest failures of an email marketer is not addressing the right prospects.
To improve this situation, design your ultimate marketing persona. This allows you to create all your marketing pitches aiming at the right crowd. You converse with them effectively because you know exactly what they are looking for. Using persona based pitch-writing has given email marketers some of the best open and click through rates in the industry.
The ubiquitous subject line
Every email marketing document worth reading features the subject of the subject line. There is a simple and rather understated reason for this. The email inbox has evolved into something that looks like the outside of a popular night club. You have a heavy set and mean bouncers who would not bat an eye lid to toss the posers, hustlers and the wannabe's. Only the best dressed or the one loaded with dough gets in.
It's the same when it comes to email inboxes.
ISPs are the bouncers and you shall not pass if you do not fit the bill. Your subject line is your $500 suit. Wear it well and you get a direct entry into the VIP lounge. Craft subject lines smartly and create an atmosphere of trust. There are slim chances of you getting into the inbox, so you really need to make every word in the subject line work.
The copy: how much is too much?
There is a thin line between being too frugal and cramming in the Iliad into your copy. Be practical in your approach. You need to know exactly what you are going to address in the body. Make a point list and then create the pitch based on it. Do not create as you go. It will not be convincing and the lack of effort will show. Research plays a predominant role in this process. You should know the intricacies of your product, the pain points that the customer grapples with and then address them accordingly. Most of the emails that we get today are just empty sales pitches telling us how brilliant their product is and what a grave mistake it would be to not buy.
Attempting this will send you straight to the trash and then you will get blocked. Converse with prospects, understand their needs and pitch your services where they are needed. Going overboard with product descriptions is a strict no. One of the most common issues that email marketers face is in the design phpect. If you do have a design team then you are one of the lucky few. Not every email marketer has that privilege. Enter pre-designed templates. These are God sent and make your life infinitely easy. You do need to do a tiny bit of rework to incorporate your corporate identity into it, but that is not a difficult task. If you do not have the right resources and the know how to go about designing an award-winning pitch, you can as well stick to the basic black and white format, and surprisingly, it does work in this day and age too.
Sender Reputation
You would not open your door to an unknown person or a person of bad reputation. Your sender reputation is a very serious concern and requires you to focus on it intently. You get blacklisted if you mess around with general email marketing guidelines. Make sure you attach your name in the body; it goes miles in building reputation. People generally open up to a person and not to a robot or a company. Make sure you do not hit SPAM trigger words in your copy or subject line. There are tons of these words and it does become tricky to avoid all of them. You have a lot of sites available which give you a spam score. If it is too high, it's back to the scribbling pad.
Keeping all of these issues in mind and some more such as using a bona fide email service provider, attaching unsubscribe options in every email and so on. You will see metrics take a steady upturn. Keep track of where your messages are going, who is reading them and when.
This allows you to know a lot about the market you are catering to, and with this information, you can make changes in the campaigns you run.
