Email marketing is bigger than you think

By Kélyn Donough

Email marketing is seen as a big driving channel in order to sell things online. Many may not agree but studies beg to differ, showing that 66% of consumers make purchases through an effective email marketing message. This statistic was proven to be more than that of purchases made through direct mail, social, telephone or mobile marketing.

There are 7 ways to generate more leads using email marketing:
1. Get to know your target audience
Many people get bombarded with emails from companies who are trying to sell them products that they don‘t need and these emails often get ignored. The best way to get your audience to open your email and consider buying your product is to understand who they are. Once you know your audience, personalise the mail by offering them a product that will benefit them. Mass messaging will get ignored but if your messages are targeted there is a bigger chance they will be read and shared with peers with the added benefit being that your company will be acknowledged through word-of-mouth.

2. Emails must be on-the-move friendly
Think of all the situations people get into life and how busy people are. Now write an email that is easy to read no matter what circumstance your target audience may be in. Having emails that are easy to read increases the chance of the receiver taking the time to read the content. Email marketing needs to be mobile friendly because more and more people are accessing their e-mails off their smart phones and tablet devices.

3. Your subject line is your make or break
Your subject line needs to lure your target audience into opening the email and reading it. An unappealing subject line will result in no reads, or even emails being deleted.
The best way to test which subject lines work or not, is to send different subject lines to a selection of your audience. The one with the best performance can be sent to the rest of your target audience.

4. Emails need to have a main purpose
First you need to decide if the purpose of the mail is to advertise your products, increase the amount of individuals visiting your blog or just to get your audience to get into contact with your business.
Make sure not to have more than one purpose as this weakens the value of the email.

5. Offers they cannot refuse
Once you have the main purpose of the email, you can then offer your customer something they cannot refuse. Include a call to action both at the start of your email and towards the end, making sure it is as tempting as possible.
The more tempting it is, the greater the chance of your email marketing being a success.

6. Measure the success of the campaign
It is always good to look back at your campaigns and to see what works and what doesn’t. Finding out what does work and what doesn’t makes it easier for you to tweak your campaigns in order to generate greater numbers for future campaigns.

Email marketing is not a channel to be forgotten but rather to be embraced. Make the most of this channel and get the conversations you deserve.