Your step-by-step guide to successful email marketing
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Your step-by-step guide to
Successful Email Marketing @
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Your step-by-step guide to successful email marketing
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Email is a B2B and SME marketer’s best friend. Despite regular reports announcing its demise, email marketing remains the single most popular tool for lead generation and conversion. There are several good reasons for this.
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Here are just a few of them: 3 It’s cost-effective 3 It’s quick 3 It’s targeted 3 It’s analysable
Unfortunately, it can also be your worst enemy. We’ve all had our working day interrupted by irrelevant, badly targeted, un-engaging emails that make you hit the unsubscribe button. Worse, we’ve all wasted time trying to find the unsubscribe button.
Building a good email reputation amongst your target market is a long process. You need to be in it for the long haul and what’s more, you have to get it right every time. Overstep the boundaries and you won’t get a second chance. It’s very easy to undo years of hard work with just a couple of poor marketing moves.
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This eBook addresses the main challenges of email marketing. We’ll be looking at how you can use email for lead generation and how you can integrate email marketing into your overall inbound marketing. We’ll also be giving you some top ideas for email content, and how to convert your recipients into customers.
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Contents Chapter 1:
The challenges to effective email marketing and how to overcome them Chapter 2:
Integrating email with inbound marketing Chapter 3:
Email marketing and quality lead generation Chapter 4:
Email content Chapter 5:
Converting subscribers to customers
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Chapter 1:
The challenges to effective email marketing and how to overcome them We’ll be walking you through the top 3 problems facing email marketers today, and revealing ways to jump the hurdles and get one step ahead of your competitors. 3 Relevance 3 Frequency 3 Deliverability and list hygiene
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4 out of 10 customers mark emails as spam
SPAM! Relevance According to Marketing Sherpa (http://marketing sherpa.com/heap/WisdomReport2011.pdf), lack of relevance is why 4 out of 10 customers mark emails as spam. It’s why so many email marketing campaigns fail to make an impact. Relevance is personal. It’s what your individual customer wants to read, click on and look at. So what’s the secret to a truly relevant email? It’s simple. Find out what your customer is interested in. You can have the most engaging content on the planet, but if it’s irrelevant to your recipient then it’s spam. Okay, someone has subscribed to your email list. You’ve been given exclusive access to their inbox. Don’t make the mistake of thinking this means they’re interested in everything you send them. Many subscribers sign up for a one-off offer or are only interested in one of your products or services. Not only that, but what your customer considers buying today may develop and change over time.
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Before starting your email campaign, here’s what you should bear in mind: • Demographics. Is your recipient male or female? How old are they? What’s their location? • Buying history. Do they buy a single category of product or service, or do they buy from multiple categories? What time of day do they tend to buy? • Purchase frequency, value and time. Are they a regular buyer or a one-off, a high-value buyer or a special-offer addict? What time of day do they generally purchase? • Changeability. Has their buying behaviour changed? If so, how? There’s both good news and bad news about relevance metrics. The good news is that you already have this information at your fingertips. The bad news is that many marketers don’t know how to use it and fail to apply it. Here are some answers:
Segmentation… turns mass-messaging into a precision-targeted email campaign. Breaking your list down into smaller groups allows you to send out tailored content to people most likely to respond positively.
Automation… goes hand-in-hand with good segmentation. Automated email marketing saves you time, money and effort. It allows you to personalise your campaign by sending the most relevant email at a time when your customer is at their most receptive. If in doubt, ask. Send a survey asking your customers what they’d like to read about, what they’d like to opt out of, how often they want to receive emails. You’ll build a warmer relationship with your potential customers and can further segment future emails based on what you know.
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