Does E-mail Marketing Ever Work?
Only If You Do It Right
E-mail marketing went out with anti-spam laws, right? No, though many small site owners believe it did. One AOL customer got booted (temporarily) for e-mailing everyone in her address book that she’d changed her screen name. AOL believed that amounted to spamming and AOL’s terms of service (TOS) forbids spamming. Account closed.
The fact is, e-mail marketing is probably the most cost effective way of marketing your business to new customers and keeping your regulars happy.
When can I e-mail someone?
You can’t buy lists of e-mail addresses and spam blast people who have never heard of you. The starting fine is $500 if you get caught and certainly Yahoo, AOL and MSN – the big web portals – will catch you spamming 10,000 of their subscribers. You’re gone. So is the money spent on your e-mail lists.
However, there are several circumstances in which you can contact potential or existing clients or customers – lots of them at the same time.
1. You can e-mail people who have bought from you in the past. You can contact existing customers with the latest news, sales, products and other useful information. No worries.
2. You can contact people who request news from your site by giving you their e-mail address. This is usually done through the ‘About Us’ or ‘Contact Us’ pages.
3. You can also send to opt-ins – people who have downloaded a “free” e-book or some other bonus. In order to receive the free materials, opt-ins must provide their e-mail addresses. They opt-in (choose) to receive e-mail from you.
So, if you’ve been on-line for a few years, or you’ve just completed an opt-in campaign, you have a database full of very valuable information – people you can legally contact via e-mail.
Building Your Customer Base
Building a customer base usually involves contacting those who have sent you e-mails requesting information. These aren’t customers – yet! They’re opt-ins or those who have contacted you for information. And because they contacted you, you now have the opportunity to turn these visitors into customers using e-mail to sell your services, opinions or products. So, what should you include in these messages to convince people your site is the one they want to visit?
First, establish yourself as an authority or expert. If you have an MBA from
Avoid referring to other “experts” as in, “Many professionals believe blah, blah, blah.” By pointing to other experts you take the spotlight away from you and your expertise. So instead, say “I believe blah, blah, blah” because you’re the authority.
Use client testimonials in your e-mail. Nothing sells success like success.
Offer something free – a free download, assessment, review and analysis – anything free attracts attention.
And be sure to provide these potential customers with information about you and your business. What is your mission? What’s your unique positioning statement (UPS)? Why are you the best in your field of expertise. This is not a time or place for false modesty so don’t be afraid to do a little selling here.
The point of e-mail marketing to non-customers is to pique curiosity, establish your credibility, identify a problem or problems and provide easy-to-understand solutions. The fact is, you’re selling these non-customers on you!
If you can convince opt-ins that you’re the solution to the problem, you’ve made a sale. And, if you actually deliver a workable solution, word of mouth advertising kicks in – so whatever you do, deliver something worthwhile.
E-mailing Regular Customers
These are people who already know how wonderful you are so you don’t need to sell them on visiting your site. Your regulars have your site bookmarked! In this case, it’s not about selling (know when to stop selling) it’s about communication – the basis of all good, long-term relationships, and that’s what you’re going for here. It’s also about the fact that repeat buyers purchase 67% more than first time buyers – something worth your consideration, wouldn’t you say?
Your objective, then, is to provide the latest on special “customer-only” sales and promotions, to provide useful non-sales content and to establish a sense of community around your web site. Share stories from repeat buyers and definitely ask buyers to provide their stories and pictures for inclusion in next month’s newsletter. If it works for
Avoid too many calls to action, but not all. If each month’s e-mail is all hype with no solid, useful information your going to end up in the trash without opening. You want your customers to look forward to that next e-mail and to read it top to bottom. It’s one of the least costly means of building and maintaining a strong base of regular buyers. However, an occasional call to action is expected by the recipient so use your e-mail to direct readers to take specific action – “quickly – while supplies last!” That sense of urgency motivates visitors to become buyers (site conversion).
Measuring E-mail Marketing Success
It’s not always easy to develop useful numbers from a marketing campaign. However, you receive instant customer feedback from your e-mail campaign just by counting up the number of e-mails you sent and subtract unsubscribes and bounce backs. You can quickly determine the number of e-mails that were opened and most importantly, the click through rate.
The Click-Through Rate
Absolutely. Every e-mail you send out, whether to potential or regular customers, should contain a link back to your site – either to the homepage or to the page that shows the particular product or service mentioned in the e-mail. Why make it hard for e-mail recipients to access what you mention in the e-mail? One click should do it.
The Bottom Line on E-mail Marketing
E-mail is easy to use, low-cost and it can be personalized using information stored in your database. It’s also an excellent opportunity to build customer good will by providing useful, educational content along with the latest items on sale. And customers will thank you for it – some in the form of return e-mails (always include a return e-mail address and an unsubscribe option), others in the form of increased sales. And, if your e-mails provide good information for your target audience, you begin to build a community of site visitors – visitors who return time after time to make their purchases. That’s called site stickiness.
Expectations? If you get a conversion rate of 5% you’re doing well. So, if you send out 1000 e-mails to existing customers, expect 50 of them to actually visit your site and make a purchase. Now, that doesn’t sound like a very big return but think about this – you know the junk mail you receive in your mailbox each day? Well, in these cases marketers look for a conversion rate of between .5 and 1.0% because they’re doing an industry-wide mailing.
You’re mailing to people who have contacted you so you can anticipate a return rate of 5% or better because your mailing is much more targeted to people interested in what you sell. So, do the math. Add up the costs (your time) and look for a conversion rate of 5% or better. If you don’t get that kind of return, it’s back to the drawing board to determine why your first e-mail didn’t pull. But that’s the great thing about e-mail marketing – you can do it until you get it right.
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