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By Robert Burko
One of the most frequent questions my customers ask me is
"What
should I do to make sure my email marketing campaign is a
success?" My answer is always different, depending on the
client's industry, campaign goal, and many other factors. But
in today's e-marketing landscape, there are a few pointers
that
stand true for any client, a few things that can really make
or
break an email campaign.
You could overlook these, and you'll still have an email
campaign. But if you're stuck wondering why your email
messages
are yielding little to no response, you may want to take a
closer look and consider if you're commiting any of these 5
email marketing sins:
1. When new subscribers sign up, I should treat them just like
my old subscribers.
One of the most overlooked aspects of email marketing is the
welcome message, or the message your subscribers receive as
soon as they sign up for your email list. The welcome message
is your first opportunity to connect one-on-one with your
subscribers. Think of it as your first impression, since this
is the very first of, hopefully, many email messages you'll be
sending them. Of course, you want to make a good first
impression: be courteous, friendly and very mindful of your
audience. Make sure to remind them of the benefits of signing
up, include links to your website and tell your readers how to
get a hold of you if they need. It's also important to ensure
the welcome message arrives shortly (if not immediately) after
the recipient signs up. So your best bet here is to choose an
email service provider that sends automatic welcome messages
to
your subscribers on your behalf. Some of the top email
programs
will allow you to fully customize your welcome message, so it
reads, looks and feels just like your company.
2. All my subscribers are the same, so I should just send the
same messages to all of them.
Well.. actually, no, and no. It's not rocket science:
subscribers are individuals, just like you and I. They have
different preferences, different habits, different
personalities. Addressing your subscribers by their names is a
good start (and an easy thing to do, since most reputable
email
service providers automatically insert your subscribers' names
into the greeting field). But, in most cases, this personal
greeting is just not enough. Say you own a clothing store, and
you sell men's, women's and children's clothing. John Smith is
a customer, and he loves your menswear collections. But he's
busy, and he has no women or kids to shop for. So why would he
waste his precious time browsing through your specials on
blouses and bibs? It's been proven: In a recent study by
DoubleClick, email users were 72% more likely to respond to a
business e-mail if its content was based on the interests they
had specified. Choose an email service provider that allows
you
to set up interest groups, and then allows your subscribers to
choose which groups they want to belong to. Back to the
clothing store, you would produce 3 separate emails (men's,
women's, children's) and only send them out to the subscribers
who want to read them, creating higlhy-targeted, personalized
and effective email campaigns.
3. When a reader clicks on a link from my email, it doesn't
matter if they end up on a page that looks nothing like the
actual email.
Um, actually, it does matter. First-off, you want to provide a
consistent image of your brand. That's just Branding 101. You
wouldn't create business cards that look one way, letterhead
that looks another way, and a store sign that looks completely
different. So why would your email marketing campaign look
nothing like your website? Chances are you already have a
website, so all you really need to do is customize your email
campaign to have the same look and feel. Many email service
providers will be able to create you a custom template that
matches the exact look and feel of your website. However,
beware of the price. While some email service providers charge
at least a few hundred for this, others offer free custom
templates as part of their services.
4. My email recipients may enjoy my messages, but they don't
really want to share them with their friends.
Here's the good news: According to a January 2006 report by
Sharpe Partners, 89% of US adult Internet users share email
content with their friends, family and associates. And 75% of
them forward emails to up to six other recipients. It's called
viral marketing, and it basically translates to word-of-mouth
through email (as long as you provide good content, an
essential aspect of any email maketing campaign). Some email
service providers have taken this insight into consideration,
so they have integrated the all-important "Forward to a
Friend"
feature in every email you send. A few email providers will
even
go a step further, and allow you to track which subscribers
are
forwarding your messages, so you can get a true glimpse at
your
"brand ambassadors" (and maybe offer them some extra perks).
5. After I send out my email campaign, there's nothing left
for
me to do.
If you look at it that way, you're really missing half the
process, and jeopardizing the success of your future
campaigns.
Here's why: any reputable email marketing program will include
campaign tracking and reporting. These allow you to view how
many of your messages were opened, which bounced back, which
links were clicked on, and, with some email providers, exaclty
which recipients clicked on each link. This data not only
converts email marketing into an incredible lead generation
tool, but it also allows you to learn more about your
subscribers. So if you operate a travel agency, and you see
nobody clicked on the Mexico vacation link, but 200 readers
clicked on the New York vacation link, you'll know next time
to
place a greater focus on New York vacations. You could even
send
a follow up campaign to those 200 readers with a special offer
for a New York vacation upgrade. That's lead generation and a
highly-targeted upsell in one shot. Are you taking advantage
of
these?
About The Author: Robert Burko is president and founder of
Eliteweb.cc (www.eliteweb.cc), an Internet portal and
suite of Fortune 500 services for small businesses. Elite
Email
Marketing (emailmarketing.eliteweb.cc) is a leading
email
service provider, and includes all the powerful features
highlighted in this article.
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