Email marketing is a useful tool in your marketing armoury and can produce excellent results if used with care.
I have a blog post that talks about the benefits of using email broadcasting here.
But I want to add to that with some practical advice from my own experiences.
I, along with 3 other Norwich based business men, have been running a monthly networking event that attracts around 50 visitors every time. We work with a large database that has been collected and built over 5 years and is managed through an excellent autoresponder system to ensure that subscribing and un-subscribing is handled correctly.
But here's the extra that we have learnt over time.
We used to send out two versions of the email - one which was html based and had attractive graphics and a pleasing layout, and a very plain text only version that simply had links to the appropriate events page on our website.
Like all good marketers we constantly test and measure the effectiveness of our campaigns. Over a long period there is no doubt that in terms of desired results - in our case, bookings for the event - the plain text version wins hand down.
Why should that be? I can't give a precise, scientific answer. However we must assume that the more complex html version didn't make it past the various virus checkers and junk mail filters and the recipients never even got to see the message.
The second observation is that of the delivery time.
We have consistently found that sending the message to arrive between 10am and noon gives us our best chance of instant bookings. I guess earlier than that and it gets lost among the overnight junk. We also find the Tues/Wed/Thurs work best for us too.
So, in summary, use our experiences as a starting point, but do make sure that you do your own testing. Try different times and formats - and measure the results.
If you need advice on sales strategy, email marketing or finding an autoresponder just call or email me and I'll try to help.
Useful autoresponder links:
http://alloycrm.aweber.com
http://www.sendfree.com/affref/105448/
Showing posts with label email marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label email marketing. Show all posts
Monday, November 9, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Master Email Lists to Increase Profits
I spend most of my time now working with on-line sales and marketing, but for the last 10 years I've been specialising in CRM - Customer Relationship Management.
They may seem worlds apart but there is a great deal that brings them together.
The whole purpose of having a website for your business is to generate enquiries, leads or direct sales. Either
way you will be collecting some data about your prospective customers. Probably all their details when they have purchased but maybe just their email address when they first enquire.
What you do with that data can make a great deal of difference to the result - a sale and maybe a second sale later on.
The smart businesses do that by using CRM. It isn't a piece of software, it's a process.
Keeping in touch with the people on your list can really make the difference. If they have made an initial enquiry, then sending them an answer quickly followed by a number of sequenced emails with more information and appropriate offers is likely to result in a sale down the line because you bothered to keep in touch.
Doing that can be a pain and time consuming, even though the end result is worthwhile.
There are a number of autoresponders around that make that process easy for you. Once your enquirer has handed over their email address via your web page, a whole series of email followups can kick-in, all designed to entice your prospect to take the next step.
Once you have written the emails and decided the gap between each before they are sent out, the whole thing is automated for you. Those email addresses are now held securely and have agreed that you can send them appropriate information. So, if you have a new product or service to shout about, it's easy to send out a mail to everyone who has ever enquired.
You don't even have to worry about people who un-subscribe or whose email address bounces. That's all done for you at a really sensible and cost effective price.
There are two providers I use regularily, aWeber - probably accepted as the industry standard, and SendFree - not quite free if you want the emails to look right, but still inexpensive.
If you would like to go down this route and need some help and guidance, please contact me through my site Alloy CRM site where I help businesses increase sales, revenue and profit.
http://alloycrm.aweber.com
http://www.sendfree.com/affref/105448/
They may seem worlds apart but there is a great deal that brings them together.
The whole purpose of having a website for your business is to generate enquiries, leads or direct sales. Either
way you will be collecting some data about your prospective customers. Probably all their details when they have purchased but maybe just their email address when they first enquire.
What you do with that data can make a great deal of difference to the result - a sale and maybe a second sale later on.
The smart businesses do that by using CRM. It isn't a piece of software, it's a process.
Keeping in touch with the people on your list can really make the difference. If they have made an initial enquiry, then sending them an answer quickly followed by a number of sequenced emails with more information and appropriate offers is likely to result in a sale down the line because you bothered to keep in touch.
Doing that can be a pain and time consuming, even though the end result is worthwhile.
There are a number of autoresponders around that make that process easy for you. Once your enquirer has handed over their email address via your web page, a whole series of email followups can kick-in, all designed to entice your prospect to take the next step.
Once you have written the emails and decided the gap between each before they are sent out, the whole thing is automated for you. Those email addresses are now held securely and have agreed that you can send them appropriate information. So, if you have a new product or service to shout about, it's easy to send out a mail to everyone who has ever enquired.
You don't even have to worry about people who un-subscribe or whose email address bounces. That's all done for you at a really sensible and cost effective price.
There are two providers I use regularily, aWeber - probably accepted as the industry standard, and SendFree - not quite free if you want the emails to look right, but still inexpensive.
If you would like to go down this route and need some help and guidance, please contact me through my site Alloy CRM site where I help businesses increase sales, revenue and profit.
http://alloycrm.aweber.com
http://www.sendfree.com/affref/105448/
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