Times like these you need to be more creative with your budget. The good news is that email marketing can fit into most anyone's budget. Wikipedia explains that email marketing is a form of direct marketing, which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to your customers/clients. You can achieve a big bang for a small price while getting out relevant messages, achieving brand appeal and the ability to measure it all.• Reduce Other Costs_ Think about what you are printing: holiday cards, invitations, newsletters. Could these be emailed? Of course they can.
• Get Valuable Info_ Using email you can obtain valuable stats and watch response rates in real time. With this information you can easily tweak your emails, see what is working and not working with your client/customer base.
• Build Brand Loyalty_ With email you can keep current clients/customers happy and engaged. Reward loyal customers, but keep it interesting.
• Do's and Don'ts – Use Email The Right Way
DON'T buy/rent an email list
DON'T send emails everyday
DO be client/customer specific
DO keep your focus on a permission-based strategy
DO make it fun and different
–Melissa Behrens, Senior Graphic Designer
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2 comments:
Could you explain more about the first two "Don'ts" and your thinking behind them? And, isn't it hard to be "client specific" if you are sending a message out to the on-line universe?
One more thing--any advice on choosing an identity for these comments/questions? (Not sure there is an easy answer.)
Thanks!
Hi Karen_
Thanks for the questions. It’s best to stick with email marketing’s best practices. Sending unsolicited email is called SPAM (ack!). Sending spam will ruin any legitimate organization’s reputation and brand value. Only send emails to people that have given you permission. You may ask how you could ever build an email base. Collect, collect, collect every chance you get. In the signature of your email add a link to sign-up for your companies’ e_newsletter or collect them through your website in the same way. Save business cards from the people you meet at events.
Once you start accumulating email addresses group them. Do they fall under clients, prospective clients, vendors, are they from a specific event you went to or spoke at? Now when you send out an email blast you can pick and chose who would be interested in reading what you have to say.
Frequency of your message is very important. If you don’t send enough messages it’s difficult to stay fresh in their minds. On the other hand you don’t want to annoy them where they will unsubscribe to your message. The best bet is to send them bi-weekly or monthly and then stick with that schedule.
As for branding emails, here at The Byne Group we have created our own monthly e_newsletter. We’ve given it a name, Freshly Squeezed and a look that is consistent with the rest of our branding. It’s all about 360 degree marketing. You can view and sign-up for our e_newsletter online at thebynegroup.com under newsworthy.
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