Email marketing is an inexpensive way to gain new customers and increase your sales revenue. Unfortunately, email marketing is not self-evident. In other words, its very easy to get it wrong. Marketers need to understand that email marketing is not traditional marketing. Email marketing is social media marketing. In other words, sending out random emails will not produce the results you’re looking for. If you want your campaigns to be successful, you need to know your customers. What do todays customers want?

Permission
If you don’t like unsolicited emails, then neither do your customers. If you send emails without permission, not only will they not be read, they might be seen as spam. The last thing you want is for your Internet Service Provider to stop forwarding your emails. If your customer has requested information, then you already have their interest. The trick is keeping it. Asking for permission will help.

Frequency
No one likes to be bothered with constant emails. If you send too many, then you may as well send none at all. A minimum of one email per month, but not more than two or three, is about right.

Content
Writing is an art, and writing emails is no exception. As with any genre, you want to connect with your audience. It doesn’t matter if you’re writing fiction, poetry or ad copy. The key is to do it effectively. The problem with many emails is that they sound like sales pitches. Thats a problem because, in the world of social media, sales pitches are unpopular. If you want to establish a rapport with your customers, then you need to use the right tone. Being conversational will help you to seem more human. Todays customers want to hear from the individuals within your company. They don’t care about the company itself. Asking questions and letting your customers tell you what they want is more important than making statements.

In addition to tone, its important to make your emails interesting. They have to be different from previous emails and related to them at the same time. If they’re all alike or not relevant, then you risk losing your audience. Remember that unlike traditional marketing, email marketing is a dialog. Your customers need to know that you’re listening.

Email is Not Enough
Email marketing alone is not enough to maintain a dialog with your customers. For best results, it needs to be used along with social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Your email marketing campaign will be much more successful if its part of an overall social media marketing strategy that takes into account the rules of the new virtual marketplace and the expectations of the consumers who shop there. Provide links and stay connected. Youll get to know your customers better, and that means more sales.

Theres more to email marketing than just hitting send. Knowing what likely customers will respond to is the only way to get their attention. Todays consumers want to have meaningful conversations about products they like. They don’t want to hear from traditional salesmen. In other words, the key to a successful email marketing campaign is to sound like you’re not selling anything. The bottom line is – if it looks like spam, it wont be read.

For help with your Facebook, Twitter or email marketing, contact Horton Group: 615-292-8642.