So, you’ve finally decided that email marketing is an effective marketing tactic? (If you’re wondering why, check out Email Marketing: What’s the Point). Great! You’ve even composed your first customer email message? Even better! You’re just about ready to send it off when you realize you’ve left the subject line blank. Good catch – we all know a “no subject” email won’t help market any business. But before you just slap in any generic line and click “send,” consider the importance of this single line. This is your chance to attract your customer. This is your opportunity to pull them in. It’s make it or break it – entice your customer to open your email, or say hello to the trash bin. To avoid every marketer’s fear of the email “delete” button, we’ve complied a few tips to make your email subject lines truly glow in customers’ inboxes. Be Enticing Easier said than done, right? Think about what makes you want to open an email. Subject lines that are compelling, interesting, or offer a call to action are the ones that we all want to read. Try instilling a sense of urgency into your line – make customers feel the need to read your email right now. Focus on the benefits that your customer will gain by opening this particular email. Attract readers by telling them what they’re going to get out of your message. If the subject is exciting enough to get its own email, you should be able to create one enticing line promoting it. …But Be Honest Make sure your subject line matches the content of your email. Don’t get so caught up in making it interesting and exciting that it becomes irrelevant to the actual content of the email. Level with your customers about what they will gain from your message. If you can’t develop one enticing line that truthfully expresses your email’s purpose, maybe you shouldn’t be sending out that email in the first place. Focus Your Intention Why do you want customers to open this email? What are they going to get out of it? Be clear about the reason for sending the email. Customers should be prepared for your message’s content by reading its subject line. Be specific and single-minded about your goal. Know exactly your purpose for sending the message and make sure it’s reflected in the subject line. Get Technical Avoid spam words such as free, help, percent off, and reminder. These words often get automatically sent to customers’ spam folders, making it highly unlikely that your subject line, let alone your email, will ever reach customer eyes. Make it Short and Sweet Don’t turn your subject line into a short story. The goal is to encourage readers to click on your email because of its subject line, so don’t try to begin your email’s content in the subject line itself. Make your enticing, purposeful point, and get out. Your business could have meticulously researched email marketing, followed all the steps of writing an effective marketing email, and applied all the tips for email marketing success. But none of that matters if your recipients don’t ever open your message. Writing a quality subject line is a crucial step in order to triumph in email marketing. You get one line, one chance – don’t blow it. For some examples of great subject lines and even more helpful tips, check out MailChimp’s subject lines best practices. Photo Credit
Email marketing
Email Marketing: What’s the Point?
There are millions of ways to market. It seems that blogs, articles and experts are constantly telling us their thoughts and opinions on the best and newest way to attract customers. But which tried-and-true marketing tool has stood the test of time? If you guessed email marketing, you’d be right. Email marketing seems to epitomize what we all want in a marketing plan: simplicity, cost-effectiveness and efficiency. Simplicity Email marketing offers an easy way to connect with customers, and the tools available to companies make these emails easy to distribute. Websites such asMailChimp and iContact help to organize contacts, construct messages and send outgoing emails. These Web-based email marketing tools are made easily available to businesses, even offering list segmentation, targeting capabilities and tracking. Email marketing is also proactive and immediate. There’s no waiting around for customers – you are reaching out to them. Emails head directly to your customers with just the click of a button. It’s often the fastest and easiest way to get consumers to engage with your brand – a customer reads your company’s email on their smartphone, clicks on your enticing link and is instantly brought to your company page- quickly and easily connecting with your business and your message. Cost-effectiveness Marketing is an expensive, yet necessary, for a successful business. Customers can be frugal, and finding effective ways to market to them is often costly. The good news? Email marketing is a cost-effective way to connect with customers. Email messages require almost no materials, production or postage expense. Additionally, many self-service sites remove the need to pay someone to creatively design your message by offering ready-made templates and structures. Email marketing facilitator MailChimp allows you to sign up for free, and iContact offers free trials. For small or medium-sized businesses, where your reach is inherently smaller, email marketing offers an effective marketing channel for little to no cost. Reaching the masses Email marketing is a simple way to reach a large audience. While not all clients have a Facebook page or Twitter handle, the vast majority of customers have at least one email address. Even better, most of these consumers are in virtually constant contact through their email. With so many different Internet-friendly devices such as smartphones and tablets, users are able to access their email accounts from anywhere, at any time of the day. Though email allows you to include the masses, it also uniquely allows you to segment your master list, targeting specific customers with specific messages. Email marketing offers the chance to target your audiences, ensuring that certain customers receive certain emails at certain times or in certain locations. Though one of the keys to effective marketing is combining different marketing tactics to create a complete overall marketing strategy, make sure email marketing doesn’t fall through the cracks. Using this simple marketing tactic will save your company time and money, while easily reaching a mass of consumers by simply clicking “send.” Photo Credit