How to Build a Successful Email Marketing Campaign

In recent years, email marketing campaigns have often gone the way of the print mail marketing campaigns: straight into the rubbish bin. People have become more and more selective when giving out their email addresses, even at some of their favourite stores. Though many cashiers will ask for an email address in order to send buyers coupons, consumers are already expecting to be hit with a barrage of junk mail and spam.

Spammers and email scams like the Nigerian prince scam have made it harder for earnest marketers to reach out to consumers with their messages. However, all is not lost. You just have to know how to reach your market without coming off as an electronic sales pitch.

As any good marketer knows, marketing is an on-going process. Even if you’re a famous company such as Nike or Coca-Cola, you will always need to market your goods or services. If you’re struggling to come up with new leads, companies such as GetWired can help you generate new leads with email campaigning and other forms of marketing.

Your first step is to choose a goal for your campaign, or simply put, a way to determine whether or not you’ve received a lead. Read on to learn about possible goals you may have and how you too can launch a successful email marketing campaign that generates the types of leads you want.

Sign Up for Weekly/Biweekly/Monthly Newsletters

Getting people to sign up for newsletters is an excellent first step. This is a great way to bring them the latest news, the latest products and services and any specials or deals you might have going on. This is the kind of stuff they’re genuinely interested in, and so long as you don’t bombard them, you’ll look forward to opening your emails.

Keep your newsletters short and to the point. Try not to touch on too many subjects. Choose three or four topics, create engaging content and send it off. You want to entice buyers to click on certain parts of the email to get more information on a product or service. Keep some information back so it will force readers to click a link to your site.

Getting a newsletter sign up also shows a level of trust between you and consumer. They trust your company not to give out their email address, and they know you’re not trying to spam them.

Sign Up for an Upcoming Event or Show or Attend It

Photo: CC-BY 2012 Pop Culture Geek

Trade show and other events make for great marketing opportunities. People come here to buy so you already have their interest. The hardest part is letting people know where you’ll be and when you’ll be there.

Shows and events give you the opportunity to interact with your customers face-to-face without distractions or the option to delete you. The consumer can see your product up close and get a better idea of what you’re all about. Your sales people will have better chances of nailing sales if they can only get people to come.

By getting people to commit, or at least saying they’ll commit, you’ll know two things. First, you’ll have a rough sketch of how many people are coming to the show with the intention of dropping by to see you, which will help you decide how many people should be sent to work the show. Too few and customers won’t bother waiting. Too many and your employees will be overcrowded and bored.

Second, you’ll know how people genuinely interested in the product or service. Even if they don’t make it to the event, the fact that they went through the trouble of making their commitment known is a good indication that they might be willing to buy from you in the future.

Interact with Company’s Social Media Pages

Getting more likes on Facebook or follows on Twitter is usually a good sign that you’re doing something right. Basically, the consumer is expecting to interact with your brand on a near-daily basis, and that’s an awesome first step.

Make sure your company’s social media links are in an accessible place on your email campaigns. If readers have to look too hard, they might just forget about it all together. If you’re having trouble getting people from the email to the social media site itself, offer an incentive. It doesn’t have to a discount or a coupon, but a promise of more information and the latest updates.

Be sure to keep your social media and your websites working together. You don’t want to give too much away on social media because you can’t always gauge interaction. People might view your status updates and tweets, but never click on links. They might visit your site later, but you won’t have an accurate read on the success of your marketing efforts.

With emails, you can track how many people click links so it’s best to use both in different ways.

Purchase a Product or Service

The end game is always the same. You want people to come and buy from you.

The success of an email marketing campaign is often measured in how much money was made within the days or weeks, depending on the type of email, following the campaign. Theoretically, if more people clicked the links to your site and your profits were up, your campaign was a success. There are naturally many factors that play into this, but on the whole, it’s a good start.

When encouraging customers to buy from you, keep your subject lines short yet informative. Something as simple as “Summer Sale” will probably generate more clicks than “Check out these cute summer clothes at out summer sale.” Include all of the necessary details about the product or service you’re trying to sell, but hold back just a little so the customer will have to click the link.

Photo: CC-BY 2010 Keith Williamson

All of these indicate that a potential buyer is interested in your company and might make a purchase either in your store or online. While opening the email is a good first step, it’s getting your audience to the next step that is the true challenge.