Email Marketing Guide: Part 3

Continued from Part 2

Personalize Your Email Messages

The more personal you can make your emails, the better off you will be. PayPal and eBay have mastered the art of sending personalized emails. PayPal addresses their customers by name in their emails, and they have a conversational tone in their writing that puts readers at ease. eBay will send out emails relating to each user’s shopping habits and expressed interests, which translates to more sales and more effective lead conversions.

Design your emails around your users, keeping their interests and lifestyles in mind. This again will help you avoid getting marked as spam. Most email users know that business emails are sent out through automated systems, but they are more likely to read them if they come across as a personal message from one person to the next.

Vary Your Email Content

You do not always have to send out sales ads and promotional offers in your emails. You may share important news with your customers or a simple thank you for their business. The same theory applies to social media marketing and other strategies you may employ in your online advertising. Make your emails feel organic and natural, rather than forced and pushy. You will get much better results from them in the long run.

The Exception To The Rule…

You will not want to vary your content if people sign up for a specific type of email. This may be a monthly newsletter, a weekly coupon, a daily quote, etc. If you have a place on your site or an option in your registration that lets people request a certain type of email from you, that’s all you have to send. You can leave the variations for sporadic emails you send throughout the year.

So, Does Email Marketing Fit Your Business?

Remember – not all businesses work well in email marketing. Online stores and service providers can use emails to market their promotions, but many websites do not need email marketing at all. Blogs, for instance, may not need email marketing because their readers already come back to see what they have to say.

You need to assess whether or not email marketing is truly suited for your business needs before you spend time and money on a wasted effort. You may be better off exploring other areas of internet marketing and search engine optimization to generate leads for your website.