Email Marketing Campaigns – Why You Need Them

Nothing New Here…

I’m not telling you anything new when I say that email marketing is important. But just how important is having an email marketing campaign for your business? Well, as with any type of online or offline marketing, it depends on the nature of your business, your target audience, and your comprehensive business goals. I can tell you from my own personal experience, and my research, that a solid Email Marketing Campaign is one of, if not the, best ways to connect with an audience who actually WANTS to hear what you have to say. The fact alone that people are subscribing to get this content from you, puts you one step closer to goal conversion than many other marketing techniques out there.

Buzz Buzz Buzz…

With all this buzz talk about social media over the past 5 years or so, I’ve seen many companies spend hours upon hours updating their statuses, tagging, Tweeting, Pinning, Fancying, and every other social buzzword you can think about. But how effective are these methods in achieving your business goals? If you take a look at the goal conversion rate, 9 times of 10, you’ll find that email marketing comes out on top. (Although, this picture of me as a superhero DID get some pretty good traction!) Now, I’m not saying to go out and delete all of your company’s social media accounts, but you should consider how much time you are spending on Social Media versus Email Marketing.

Who You Talkin’ To?

I am a strong believer in the strength of approaching business outreach with an integrated marketing communications approach. It is imperative that you first step back and take a look at your business, who your target audience is comprised of, and how best to reach them. Regardless, an email marketing campaign should play some sort of role in the mix. And in most cases, it should play a larger role than it’s given. Whether you are a Fortune 500 company, large business enterprise, online eCommerce store, or a small local business – an email marketing campaign can help you better connect with your customers, clients, or internal networking group.

If you are not currently running an integrated email marketing campaign, hopefully by now, I have convinced you to start seriously looking into it. Now that we have that out of the way, and we all agree that email marketing is important – I’d like to share a few tips on how to increase the size of your contact list.

Some Quick Tips To Grow Your Email Marketing Subscriber List

• Have email signup available to your users throughout the entire website. 
• Provide an incentive for signing up for your email list. For an eCommerce site, this could be a discount code or free gift. For other industries, consider offering free white-paper downloads, exclusive information, or regular industry updates.
• Tell your users what they can expect from your emails. Make sure you plainly state the purpose of your emails and why they should sign up for them.
• Let your subscribers decide what types of emails they want to receive. If you have multiple email lists, give your users the option to choose which lists they want to be a part of.
• K.I.S.S. – We’ve all heard of the old acronym “Keep it simple stupid”. With email signup forms, the same rule applies. Make it quick and easy for people to subscribe. Albeit, having more information on your subscribers can be extremely useful for sending them target messaging, so allow them to provide additional information only if they want to.
• Cross-promote with your business partners. If you associate with another company to offer your customers additional services, or if you have supporters for your organization or association – see if they would be willing to include a link to your email signup page on their website, social media account, or in their own email blasts.

This is a snapshot I just took of one of my clients’ Constant Contact subscriber growth over the past 30 days…
Not too shabby!

If you want more information and tips on how to increase conversions through your email marketing campaigns, feel free to contact us with your questions.