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How to use email marketing for business?
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Are you looking for ways and
methods to increase traffic to your business website?
Look no further!
Email marketing has proven to be
the most cost effective and productive marketing tool.
In use for two decades, emails
have the highest read percentage (Approx. 43%) compared
to other online
marketing strategies like SMS, WhatsApp and social media.
This guide will help you get the
best response from your email marketing campaigns.
Step 1: Strategy
Who are your target audience for
the email campaigns?
How will the emails benefit them?
Yes, unless there is something for the end user, they will not open the email!
What are you trying to promote?
Your services / products / company news?
From where will you collect the
database?
How will you send the emails?
There should be a tracking system for analysis purpose. How many emails were
opened / clicked / un-subscribed / SPAM / blocked?
Once, you have analysed and
answered the above questions, you are ready to roll!
Step 2: Collecting the email Database
The email database can you be
your existing clients, dealers etc. Depending on your line of business the
database will vary from services to services and products to products.
There are options of purchasing
the databases from several providers.
But there is always risk of landing with an email list with duds that will only
tarnish your company image and get your
email address blocked by ISP.
One of the best methods to
collect an email database of prospective clients is during trade shows and
exhibitions.
An investment in a digital
business card reader will be worthwhile. The database can be exported to an
Excel sheet or Text document for later usage in email marketing software.
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| Business Card Reader |
Step 3: Landing page
The very purpose of an email
campaign is to drive traffic to the website and generate new business.
Devise specific pages on your
business website, that will be used as the target page for the email campaign.
Each of these landing pages,
should have a specific goal. Does the page communicate clearly about the
product / service? Ensure, that there is a 'Call to action' button in the page.
For selling product, place the
link to purchase the product on the page itself.
For promoting service, the
communication links should be prominently placed.
Floating toolbars are useful in
displaying the email address and business contact number. The floating toolbars
can be either at the top or bottom of the page.
Step 4: Writing the emailer
Will you be designing an image
based emailer? Or text based?
An image based emailer will be
attractive but heavy to load on mobile phones.
A pure text based one will be
fast loading and work very well for reaching maximum number of people and least
loading time.
Ensure that there are two to
three hyperlinks in the emailer, pointing to the specific page.
Always, focus on one service /
product per emailer.
Have a clear 'Call to Action'
link. What do you want the email reader to do next? Sign up for your newsletter
or visit your page and generate business inquiry.
Step 5: Sending the emails
There are several methods in
which you can send the emails.
Gmail allows you upto 500 emails
per day in the free account and 2000 in business account.
Paid online services like
MailChimp and MailJet are professional allow you to upload the email database
and design emails.
They also offer, ready to use templates
that can be customised as per your requirements.
Scheduling your emails is another
powerful method to automate your email marketing campaigns.
Step 6: Analysis
Once, the emails have been sent,
you should have the tools to analyse the response.
Sending emails from Outlook / Gmail etc. have a majors drawback in the terms
of lack of reporting.
Professional online tools like
MailChip and MailJet allow you to analyse the response.
Here are some reports and graphs on the statistics of email campaign:
Summary:
Effectiveness of an email
campaign cannot be under estimated. With systematic approach and professional
outlook towards the online marketing strategy, companies can expect a decent
ROI (Return On Investment).
