The difference between spamming and effective email marketing

Email marketing is still one of the most relevant digital marketing tools for small businesses. With the majority of people preferring to be contacted via email compared to other digital marketing methods.

What is email marketing?

Email marketing is the use of email to promote your brand or product to your potential or existing clients. At its worst it is when people spam you with irrelevant content but it can be used to build trust and meaningful relationships with your customers when done right.

Seven of the best email marketing strategies

1. Know your client

It is important to build a buyer persona. Who is your client and what information is important to them? How are they interacting on your website and where in the customer journey are they? By segmenting your email list, you will be able to target specific clients with personalized emails which approach them in their customer

journey.

2. Personalise your email

As mentioned above this is important but don’t take it to the extreme else you may not get the open rate you would like. People don’t tend to open mails with their name in the subject line. People are wary of identity theft so it is important to broach the subject of personalisation carefully. Only use the information supplied to you via your opt-in form.

3. Get permission

People don’t like to be sold to if they have not given you permission. It is important to create your email list by having an opt-in form on your website. You should also give your customer something of value when you request their email address.

It could be an ebook, a coupon or even a free 30-minute consultation with you. This is important as it will also display to customers how much you value the information they are supplying you with. You should also have an unsubscribe button so that your customer can opt-out should they wish too.

4. Use all your emails for promotion

There are a variety of emails which you can send to your client. They can be transactional or informative. Depending on the type of email will depend on what kind of information you supply them with.

The transactional email
These are usually sent out when a client has bought a product or service. You can continue to strength your brand by giving your client added information on how to use the product they have bought. For example, if they have bought a casserole dish from you, you could send them a recipe for a great casserole to make in their new dish.

The forgotten shopping cart email
Sometimes people will shop online and get side-tracked and forget their shopping cart. You can send them a reminder of their shopping cart. If they complete the purchase you could give them a discount coupon for their next purchase. 

The newsletter
This email should be sent out consistently. Your clients will know that you send a newsletter at a certain time and will come to expect it at that time on a certain day. If you send it on different days and at different times you may not get the response you want from your email.

It is therefore important to send it out punctually every time. You should also not send them out too frequently. They can be weekly, bi-weekly or monthly depending on the content you send out.

5. Remember your reader

Some people skim through their emails and won’t read every line you have written therefore it is important to design your email with these people in mind. Use headings and subheadings. You could bold, italicize or underline important parts of the email. Use bullet points. Write short sentences. These will all help your reader to get to the information they want from the email.

6. Use high quality content

The content of your email is critical. This is the information which will build your brand in the eyes of your customer. If it is low quality or has many mistakes in it, then your brand could lose credibility therefore it is important to use high quality content which is relevant to your reader.

7. Measure your campaign

When you have done an email campaign it is important to measure it. By doing this you will see what you are doing right and where you need to improve.

• This article was originally published on NSBC