6 Tips to Engage & Convert Customers with Email Marketing

The hardest part about email marketing is engaging your customers and keeping their interest. But as long as you provide high quality content with valuable tools, tips and advice that they can easily apply to their business this shouldn't be a problem.

Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing tools for many businesses. According to a study by ExactTarget , 77% of consumers prefer to receive permission-based marketing communications through email.

Email Marketing is also a way to reinforce relationships through special offers or bonus content and to keep your product or service top-of-mind. Email client service providers have worked diligently over the years to minimize spam and spam complaints by establishing best practices that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can trust because they are inundated with so much unsolicited email. Depending on your inbox provider and/or your email solution provider, your newsletter may not even make it into your customer’s inbox.

To help you ensure you are running an effective email campaign here are 6 tips to follow:

1)      Identify yourself – Your email campaign will fail if you do not tell the recipient who you are and why you are contacting them…

2)      Keep it short and to the point – A precise concise subject line followed by short declarative sentences should keep your readers opening your email and moving them through the copy to your desired outcome…

3)      Develop trustworthiness – One simple way to achieve this is to identify on your sign-up form exactly what a subscriber can expect and the frequency of your newsletter. Then, regular communication will solidify the bond (assuming you consistently provide value.) But beware of the urge to over promote…

4)      Create visual appeal – We’ve all become a lot more visual and consumers’ expectations have risen accordingly. There are any number of excellent email service providers who offer both beautiful templates as well as the ability to customize the HTML to create exactly the look and feel you want. When adding images, keep the size small or you may risk having them blocked…

5)      Segment your list – Most likely, your email newsletter will serve more than one purpose. You do not want to cram in educational information with event reminders and end with a postscript inviting them to take a survey…

6)     Provide a clear call to action – If you’ve done all of the above, it’s a simple step to “ask for the order.” Whether it’s a simple request to click through to read a blog post, watch a video demo or share on social networks, make the desired action simple and clear. The CTA isn’t always “buy now.”