Five tips for effective email marketing

Effective communication is crucial to connect to your audience, which is why email marketing plays such a vital role in any online marketing strategy. One of the best ways to create top quality emails or newsletters is to use a mass email solution that gives you maximum control and flexibility over your newsletter as well as your mailing lists to ensure optimal delivery and results.

Newsletters remain one of the best marketing tools to connect to your audience and keep them updated on your company’s news, promotions, new offers, new products or any other information that needs promoting. Newsletters also offer a chance to strengthen brand awareness, and used correctly, e-marketing can be a hugely powerful marketing tool that can help maintain and even grow conversion. In the past, newsletters would have to be sent through Outlook, and took a long time to create, and even longer to send ? often with many emails returned due to mistyped addresses or too many emails sent at once. These days there are a number of email solutions available that allow you to send unlimited newsletters to your subscribers through an easy-to-use interface. Newsletters take half the time, and delivery rates are better than ever before. Using an inferior email system could undo all the hard work you put into your email campaigns; however with returned emails or worse, non deliveries, how do you ensure that your newsletters are a success and what can you do to get your emails read? Here are some top tips for effective e-marketing:

 

? Use the best possible email software to send your emails

 

A good quality e-marketing system will allow you to deliver bulk email to your opt-in subscriber database, and will enable you to customise email templates easily, with straightforward integration tools for your website and solid reporting to track delivery and click-through results.

Subscribers should easily be able to sign up for your newsletters from your website, taking out the legwork of developing your database manually.

? Design your own email template

 

Bulk emails offer an opportunity to strengthen your corporate identity, which is why branding and customisation is so important. Adding logos and familiar company branding will create brand recognition, enabling your clients to identify your company quickly and easily. Customised templates also ensure that newsletters are eye-catching and well-designed, which increases readability and click throughs as readers will be more interested to peruse the newsletters.

 

? Regular and consistent newsletters

 

You could choose to send bulk email weekly, monthly or quarterly, however it is important to ensure that newsletters are sent consistently and regularly. Sending your newsletter on the same day each week or month ensures that your readers’ expectations are met, and also gives a professional approach. Sending your newsletters on designated days will also make it easier to manage and produce, as emails are scheduled to allow for sufficient time.

 

? Promote your newsletter properly

 

Newsletter subscription boxes should be displayed clearly and prominently on your website to ensure that customers can easily sign up to your newsletter. These forms should also be easy to complete, with as few steps as possible ? a name and email address is the easiest and simplest information to enter, and also offers the most privacy.

 

? Opt-in and opt-out subscriptions are essential

 

Opt-in newsletters should be the only type of mass email you send, otherwise your emails are considered spam and not only will they be blocked by spam filters, but you also stand the risk of alienating your customers, which can be deadly to your business. Give your subscribers an easy way to opt-in or opt-out of your newsletter at any time, without having to go through a complicated process. This ensures ethical and responsible marketing, giving a better overall success to your email marketing efforts.

 

Danie Smit offers advice on email marketing, and how boosting your marketing efforts with email solutions can help you grow your profits and connect to your audience.

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