If you are planning to start a company, mailer, or newsletter then the best and a low-cost way is to reach your customers using Email Marketing. Here are some tips.
- Make it easy for users
For users, make a sign-up form on your homepage, blog and wherever else your users and fans are already active. You might want to collect names and Email ids or invite readers to join groups, but don't go crazy with the required fields. A long subscriber form might scare people off.
- Send a welcome E-mail
It's important to remind users why they're on your Email list and reassure them that valuable things are in your platform. You might even send new subscribers a special offer or exclusive content. This could be a way of thanking them for their loyalty.
- Tell users what to expect
Whether you plan to send weekly tips, offers, sales, company updates and/or letters from the Director, it's important to tell your users what to expect and how often to expect it. Provide them as much information as possible on your sign-up form, so they can decide whether they want to be on the list or not.
- Send an Email, only if you really have something to say
My experience says, many companies start email newsletters with no plan and nothing to say. Email is simply a way to publish content, the content itself must come first. Before starting a newsletter, be sure it's a sustainable commitment that will help you achieve your business goals. Otherwise, you'll be wasting your subscribers' time, your own time and companies goodwill.
- Ask yourself
What's the goal for this kind of communication? What do we need to say? How will we measure success? Send thoughtful newsletters and keep the focus on your company's message.
- User friendly
Always feel free to use a user-friendly tone in your email newsletters. Since most emails come directly from one person, people expect human voices in their inbox. There are chances that your users are already in an informal frame of mind when they're checking their email, so an overly formal or stodgy voice might seem out of place.
- Always keep your eyes on statistics
All newsletter services provide free reports that contain helpful information. You should learn how to read and understand your reports, so you can use the statistics to improve your campaigns going forward. Pay attention to your open and click rates and identify any pattern that make those numbers go up or down. If a campaign receives higher number of unsubscribers, then try something different the next time.
- Study Spam Rules
According to Kate Kiefer Lee, most of the people send spam because they don't know any better way. Put simply, you're allowed to send bulk emails only to people who specifically asked to be on your mailing list. If you collected email addresses for a lunch giveaway or an event invitation, then you don't have permission to send marketing emails, unless you made that clear on sign-up. Include an obvious unsubscribe link in every email and don't forget to remind subscribers how they got on your list in the first place.
- Your newsletter should match your brand
Design your newsletter to fit your brand. If you're using a template, you might want to customize it to include your company's color combination and logo in the header. If your emails are consistent with the rest of your company's content, then readers will feel more familiar from the start.
- Your content should be relevant to the people
Send people content they want. Email newsletter services offers features such as groups and segmentation to help you make your content relevant to the people reading it. Segmentation allows you to target certain subscribers on your list without assigning them to the group. If your store is having a sale, then you could send a campaign only to people near a specific Zip code, because subscribers who live in other parts of the world don't need to know about it. You can also segment by activity, email clients, e-commerce data and more. Sending relevant content will keep your readers engaged and engaged readers look forward to your newsletter and will surely share it with friends.
- Always think Mobile
By end of 2015, over 50% of local searches will be conducted on mobile devices. If your campaign does not show up on mobile devices, then it will not do well. Everything you send should be mobile-friendly. Check out Return Path's “Email in Motion” infographic for some data that might affect the way you design your emails. One of the highlights: According to the study, 63 percent of Americans and 41 percent of Europeans would either close or delete an email that's not optimized for mobile. Here is the time to start using a responsive template.