Email Marketing

Email marketing doesn’t really need an explanation but just in case – email marketing is the use of the email system to send out emails to groups of people who have opted in to receive information from your company. Email marketing is not the ability to send out any old rubbish to any email address you can get your hands on! That is spamming.

 

A Google search for “email marketing” returns well over 100 million results – which is quite daunting. The results are primarily from companies wanting to sell their email marketing software and services – which is great, but you can’t buy all 100 million of them – which do you go for? The answer is quite simple – none!
Well not right now anyway.

 

To get the best out of email marketing it is vital to start at the beginning and work out what you want to say and who you need to say it to. Tied very closely to this is who is prepared to listen! Liken the situation to standing on a street corner with a megaphone – if you just stand there and shout about yourself you are quite likely to be shouted down – or worse – ignored. If, however, you put up an eye catching sign with good messaging and have something with you that would genuinely interest the shoppers then you are much more likely to get passersby who stop and take notice. The same can be said for email marketing – an all guns blazing approach will result in you being blacklisted as a spammer. A targeted and well thought out campaign will result in lifelong customers.

 

Tracking of email marketing campaigns will not only provide you with useful information of how the campaign progressed but more importantly on how your customers reacted to certain messages. This information is vital when it comes to sending out future messages. The data collected shows who opened the email, who clicked through, who didn’t and sometimes who forwarded the email on. This information is great for targeting your next campaign or following up on the existing.

 

One other function of the tracking system is to automatically handle bounced emails. Recipients who’s email address returns a hard bounce (message failure, no-recipient etc) will automatically be turned off in the database and so will not be used in any other email campaign. Some systems are clever enough to handle soft bounces (out of office replies, message delayed etc) in various ways, allowing for these people to stay opted in without being bombarded with multiple retries.

 

Unfortunately this is one question which has no firm answer. Each system may perform different tasks, have different features and charge in various ways. The best way to find your preferred off-the-shelf email marketing platform is to weigh up the required features against the cost of sending emails.

 

Alternatively, Serious Ideas have a custom built email marketing platform which can be fully tailored to your requirements. The system allows for unlimited lists and groups, handles bounced email and provides real-time tracking. Contact us for further information

 

To make the most of your email marketing campaign it is vital to get the following right:

Serious Ideas offer a wide range of services to help you get the most out of email marketing and stay legal – these services incude:

• List cleansing
• List building
• List management
• Customisable email marketing system
• HTML Email templates
• Spam testing and email analysis

Let us help you keep your customers Seriously up to date via email marketing

 

Email: email-marketing@seriousideas.com

Phone: (+44) 01932 835850

 

Fundamentally, email marketing should be about your customers and not about you. If you send out emails which aid, inspire or engage your customer then they are much more likely to be receptive to what you have to say.

 

For more tips why not sign up to our free online marketing guide where every week or two you’ll receive fresh tips on how to promote yourself online.