Become An Email Marketing Pro
Successful email marketing is a lot more than buying a list, sending an email blast and hoping someone responds. If you have some basic skills, you can become an email marketing pro and not only successfully promote your own business, but can also help others.
The most important skill you need to be successful is the ability to create messages that are engaging to the audience. The best email plan can’t make up for a confusing or unattractive message. You need the ability to write content that clearly presents the intended message to the viewer. If writing isn’t your strong point, consider taking a class or two at the local community college or partner up with someone who loves to write. Sending an email is the easy part, making it useful takes some skills that not everyone may have.
Next you need to find an email service that fits the scope of your business. The email service makes it easy to create and send large quantities of emails quickly and easily. There are some free ones out there that work pretty well, but if you are serious about growing your business go with a paid service that allows you to scale up the quantities as your business grows. There are some very good ones out there for $35 to $75 per month. If you plan to use the same system for multiple clients, make sure you have the ability to completely segregate lists. You never want to allow the lists of different clients to merge unless both parties agree to it. Most people who sign up for email newsletters want to be assured that their info will not be shared with anyone. If you break this rule even once, your whole business could come crashing down.
Open rate is everything to an email marketer. It is better to have 50% of 100 emails opened than 5% of 1,000. Why? Because a higher open rate tells your system that you are a legitimate business providing relevant content. You are less likely to be labelled a spammer if you keep the open rate up. In addition, the subscribers are less likely to unsubscribe if they find the information useful. The best way to keep the open rate high (other than having a 100% opt-in list) is to subdivide your lists into smaller lists. For example, instead of sending a huge blast to everyone who likes cars, divide your list into people who like Fords, Chevys and so on. Sometimes you may send to all of them, but other times you may have content that only gets the attention of the Ford people. This way you don’t risk turning the Chevy people off. if you already have a large list that is not subdivided, most systems allow you to create an email that gives the subscribers the chance to specify their preferences. Even though you may lose some subscribers in the process, in the long run you’ll be much better off with a tighter list.
One thing I can’t stress enough is to have an easy way for people to unsubscribe on every message you send. If you make it easy to leave the list, people are more likely to give it a try. If they decide to leave, chances are that you weren’t getting any business from them anyway!
By following these few simple rules, you can avoid many of the pitfalls of starting up an email marketing business.
