The Four Essential Elements Of An Email Marketing Strategy
If you really want to be successful in marketing your business or firm, you simply must develop and implement an email marketing strategy. Everyone uses email. Even the popular social networks and blogs rely on email. But you cannot just write an email and blast it out to everyone you have ever met. That is called spam or “spray-n-pray” and it can really make people angry.
Email marketing, because it is so adaptable and trackable, is popular. A good email marketing strategy can be the best marketing tactic available to you. You can use it to build brand visibility, to alert customers and prospects of new products and services, to follow up after people buy or subscribe to your newsletter and to build a relationship with people. According to a 2009 study by Unilever, email marketing improves recall by 64%.
What is an Email Marketing Strategy?
Your marketing strategy should answer all of the questions you and your customers or prospects would ask about why you are sending out emails.
– Goals. What do you expect to accomplish by sending out emails? Your email marketing strategy should be very clear about the reasons for every email you send.
– How Often. Email frequency to your customers and prospects is a vital element of your email marketing strategy. How often does your strategy indicate you should contact your various list segments?
– Who. Because the goal of an email marketing strategy is to improve the relevance of each email sent, you will need to be very specific about who will receive each email. In fact, you will probably find it necessary to send several versions of an email to different parts of your mailing list.
– What the customer needs to hear. What do you want to say to customers and prospects? Better yet, what does your customer need to hear from you? A strategy should indicate a purpose for each email.
For the most part, an email marketing strategy aims to sell products and services, provide information that moves readers closer to a purchasing decision, and follow up after the purchase is made to sell another product or service or to ensure that the customer is happy with the previous purchase. A good email marketing strategy will reflect the recent trends moving email from “mass marketing” to “mass personalization” of the message, the offer, and the interaction. An effective email marketing strategy also includes a measurement and analysis segment. You will want to measure the rate of response to your email messages and refine them for greater effectiveness. You will also learn more about how your customers want to interact with you.
Finally, your email marketing strategy must demonstrate respect for each person you email. Keep in mind that, according to John McKean (of the Center for Information Based Competition), 70% of our decision to buy is determined by how we are treated as people.
If you are a small business owner or professional and want to learn more about lead generation, see the short video, “How Article Promotion Can Send 25,000 New Prospects to Your Web Site Every Month – For Free.”
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