by Chukwumah Ezeobika

Created on: September 12, 2010   Last Updated: September 30, 2010

Many of the world’s biggest and most successful companies make use of email marketing. Take Google for instance, it sends email newsletters to its AdWords or AdSense users. Twitter for all its popularity still sends periodical email updates to the people on its network. For small businesses, email marketing is even much more important. Email marketing is an indispensable tool for small business owners since it is cheap, fast and simple to use. It has a global reach and generates a fast response from your audience.

However, it is not about whether you use email marketing or not but how well you do it. The following tips should help you create an optimal and successful email marketing campaign.

Getting the Right Audience

Get permission:  Allow the customer to opt-in or out. People who choose to opt-in will respond favorably to your emails.

Improve the odds that a person will join your list: Ask for very little information upfront. For example, simply ask for a name, sex and an email address. You can always ask for more information later.  Make personal data optional. Get the customer’s trust. Tell them what you will do with the information they provide.

Segment your audience: Do not use one generic email for everyone. Be as personal or as one-on-one as possible. Especially try to get the gender right.

Concentrate your efforts: Find out more about your most valuable customers. Write to them specifically.

Do not spam: Never forget this.

Content

Create original content: Your emails should contain relevant and fresh content.

Email headlines are important: Your email headlines should be catchy. However, they should not read like ads. Many customers are put off by the fact that you are trying to sell something to them before you are even through the door.

Make the content of your emails simple: Do not try to sell all your products or services in one email. Create different emails for different topics and send them differently. Focus on the message in the email.

Speak to the audience in their language: Consider age and gender and other such factors when creating the content for your emails.

Create emails that load easily: They say time is money. Consider the customer’s time and yours too. You will lose business and money if your emails take too long to load. Choose between text and HTML-based messages. You could try to create a balance between the two or ask customers to choose which one they want to see.

Create links to your website or pages

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