subject: Slip-ups and oversights in email marketing [print this page]
Email has become one of the most prominent marketing channels. However, marketers still ignore the basic email marketing etiquettes. The result is spam complaints and black listing. Given below are four 'you dare not miss this' email marketing practices.
Your email list has life, please handle it with care. Considering it as a spreadsheet with thousands of names is bad. Remember if you see them just as names and keep sending emails, your email recipient will see you as a spammer.
Just because you have their names you don't have the right to send emails to them. How will you feel when someone capture your email address through some means and start blasting emails to you. The very success of email marketing depends upon permission. Intruding someone's inbox and expecting them to buy is hope in disguise. Send permission email to all the contacts in the email list to subscribe for your email newsletters.
Make it easy. You cannot force people to stick to you if they don't want to. Hiding the 'unsubscribe' link in email clutter is a wrong habit. Keep a prominent, simple one-click 'unsubcribe' button and place it at the top/bottom right corner of your email.
Let them go if they want to. Respect their choice to 'opt-out' and immediately suppress their names from the email list. Sending emails to people who have unsubscribed is a big mistake in this social network fever.
Show them that you care. Your email marketing tricks will never work for long. At the end, the company who understands and cares for their clients and prospects will win the email marketing race.
Email and social media marketing goes hand in hand
Today, email recipients have lot more expectations from your promotional emails. Expecting a Twitter or a Facebook button is definitely one of them. As a marketer you have to understand this. Not only will you impress them, but those tiny buttons can do real good for you.
Widen your reach: If your customers and prospects like your campaign they might feel like sharing it with their social networking community. A research says that on an average each Facebook user has 120-135 friends. Imagine 120 more people seeing your message at the cost of time, effort, and money invested on just one prospect. This 1:120 is a good ratio to start placing the buttons. Right?
Grow your email list: Once people start noticing you walking in the social networking park, 10% of those 120 people surely would like to talk to you. If the conversation goes well, they will sign up for your services. Thus, you get lot more qualified leads added to your email list.
Show you care: Today's customers are net savvy. A research on internet behavior shows that people of all age groups prefer to communicate via email and social networks. Providing tweeting and other options in your emails shows you care for them.
Pay special attention: Knowing that your customers like to share your message to an entire community is a great feeling. Track who all have shared your mail through social media icons. Pay special attention to them and 'Thank' them by giving them special offers and discounts.
People today prefer to communicate and share on social networks via emails. Abstaining them from doing so (by not providing the tiny Facebook and Twitter buttons) may cost you dear. Harness the power of social networking with email marketing.
