While email marketing may have lost some of its hype over the years, it is still an important part of growing any business. A smart and imaginative approach to email marketing can dramatically increase your sales as well as continually grow your subscribers.
According to Inc., not only is email an easy way to reach mobile customers, it keeps consumers in the know, delivers coupons and drives sales, is easily customizable so that your marketing feels more personal, and is an in expensive way to reach large numbers of people. For these reasons, it is important to keep email marketing in your bag of digital marketing tricks.
Here are six easy to execute tips to help grow your email marketing lists and make you feel good about the quality and value of your email marketing efforts:
- Keep It Easy – Your sign-up form should be easy to find, and more importantly, easy to fill out. All you need is a name and an email address. In addition, the design of your email is key to keeping your emails out of the spam folder and to keeping your subscribers opening and enjoying your mailings.
An example of a good email capture landing page, courtesy of BioClarity.
- Give Them a Reason – People are constantly asked to subscribe to email lists. Give your visitors a reason to sign up. Offer value – such as coupons, free online tools, or guides – and make sure to deliver on your promises! People are much more likely to subscribe to something when they can easily see a personal benefit in doing so. They are also more likely to recommend that their friends and family do the same if they feel that they really did receive the value they were promised.
- Offer Quality Over Quantity – Work hard to deliver high quality content within each email. If the email has valuable information and/or offers, subscribers will continue to read them. If they begin to receive a high number of low quality emails with no value, your unsubscribe list will grow off of the charts and you will have a hard time getting subscribers back. Nothing annoys patrons more than wasting their time. Don’t send an email unless it provides quality and value!
- Encourage Sharing – One of the most effective marketing tools is word of mouth. Once subscribers are pleased with the value you provided them they are going to want to share it with friends, family and colleagues. Make this easy with clear and simple “Share with Friends” call to action buttons. A great tip from Hubspot is to be sure to include a plain text “subscribe” CTA button on the bottom of all of your emails so that anyone who was forwarded the email from a friend can quickly and easily sign themselves up!
- Have a Contest –Giveaways can be beneficial to bloggers and brands alike and are a great way to grow an email list. When creating your contest, be sure to follow steps 1-4 as the same rules apply. Remember to keep in mind that the better the contest rewards, the more people will be interested in sharing the contest with their friends and the more subscribers you will receive. One great prize can equal hundreds of potential clients/customers.
There are many platforms that help facilitate giveaways, with a popular one being Rafflecopter.
- Make Them Personal – While one of the benefits of email lists is undoubtedly the ease with which you can reach out to thousands of people, now more than ever it is important to make subscribers feel like you value them personally. There are several tricks that can help you to personalize your emails while keeping them easy to manage. Although it may take more time and a little more effort to make your emails feel personal, those efforts will be rewarded with higher conversion rates. Target Marketing offers some ways to personalize your marketing emails.
In this time of social media and instant messaging, emails may seem a little old fashioned. However, it is a mistake to not continue to take advantage of this valuable digital marketing channel.
It is important to make the effort to create meaningful and valuable mailings and when done so correctly your efforts will be rewarded with a growing and appreciative group of subscribers. Emails are easier to save and personalize than other social media options. They are far cheaper than traditional mailings and they offer the chance to give your subscribers a real taste of the quality products and/or services they can expect from your business.
