Consistent Email Marketing

If, as a business, you have decided to enter the world of email marketing, there are a few things you should know.

• It is relatively cheap
• It is quick
• You can reach a wide audience in one go
• You can get information out quickly

But to get the full benefit of email marketing your approach has to be consistent. Your customers like consistency and reliability.

Follow up

Email marketing is ideal for communicating an offer to your customer base. It could be a discount or special offer or it could be in the form of information – a new report, case study or reference manual.

When your flood of responses arrive all wanting a copy, you must make sure every request is actioned. Being short handed isn’t an excuse. Your customers will expect you to have planned ahead – if it was a winning offer, they would assume you’d have enough staff on hand to deal with the enquiries. After all, a great offer isn’t any good if you don’t have the man power to deal with it.

Announcing…

Email marketing is also a great way to communicate new events, future offers, products or improved products. Why not survey your customers by using an online free service such as Survey Monkey. That way you’ll get feedback directly from your customers which you can use to enhance your products and services.

Keeping your customers informed in this way will show them you care; you have their best interests at heart and should you happen to get a few extra sales along the way, even better.

Reciprocity

That is one of my favourite words referring to good old fashioned ‘give and take’.

By sending out weekly, bi-weekly or monthly tips to your mailing list, you are building a relationship of trust. You are giving them something for nothing – a very powerful thing.

Of course, what goes around comes around, so if you are seen giving them extra information free of charge, they are more likely to come to you when they need your products and services.

Keeping regular

A monthly newsletter to your customers is always a great idea. They hear from you regularly. You can use it to give more general information they may find useful. In an earlier post I mentioned the importance of segmenting your mailing list. Your newsletter is your opportunity to pop up into your list’s inbox regularly with fantastic information.

But, if you are going to do a newsletter, make sure you do send it regularly (whether monthly or bi-monthly). People will begin to expect it and if it suddenly doesn’t show up, they could be left wondering what’s happened – perhaps you’ve gone out of business?

It takes time to put together a great newsletter, but the effort will be worth it. That regular contact will ensure your company is always in the back of their minds.

Announcing…

Finally, another great benefit of email marketing is that it allows you to shout about your new products, services and offers.

Your mailing list will be the first to know what is happening. Give them an early bird offer to make them feel valued and to encourage them to remain subscribed to your mailing list.

Why you need to know this

If email marketing is done badly, it could harm your business. Done well, and you’ll reap the rewards.

Sally Ormond – freelance copywriter