Email marketing is everywhere…it begins before you even wake up. I know for certain that I will wake up to around ten to fifteen emails from different companies before I have even got out of bed! In this case…how does a company make their email more interesting than others? And how can smaller local businesses get their foot in the door? Read on for tips on how you can get that reader acting on your hard worked email:

 

  1. You need to entice customers as soon as they read the subject line

 

Now this may seem a little obvious, but, the real importance in creating a successful email, is in the subject line. Think of the saying; ‘never judge a book by its cover’, well with some things, such as emails, we subconsciously do. The reader is only going to click on it, if it is relevant, punchy or offers them some sort of incentive. Ellis-Chadwick & Doherty (2012) support this, implying that ‘56%’ of emails in their study of leading retailers and e-mail marketing campaigns in the UK, ‘offered an incentive in the subject line’ and ‘28% of emails’ mentioned a discount in the subject line. When marketers who did this were asked why, it was implied that the sturdiest ideas from the email would be mentioned in the subject, purely because this will grab the reader’s attention. This basically means that if you want your loyal customers to read your email, you need to make the subject line really stand out and benefit them in some way.

 

  1. Use an animation to get your customers attention

 

Sundar & Kalyanaraman (2004) suggest that by using animation in an email, this is much more beneficial than ‘static advertising’. For example, having lightly flashing images, moving buttons, that will alert customers to what is going on in the email. It’s this interesting technology that can get customers clicking through your email and then visiting your website.

 

  1. Work out how you are going to obtain email addresses…the genuine way

Now we all know that you can get your hands on email addresses if you pay or rent them, but customers hate that. I for one know that I hate when a company I have never bought from has emailed me, because I think back to using another company’s site and forgetting to un click the permission box- it is so annoying! Try not to associate your business with ‘annoyance’. There are many ways you can get customer’s email addresses, here are three as shown by Popick (2016) below;

 

  • ‘Include a link’ to your email sign up form on your website. This way, customers perusing your website can actively choose to get your emails because they are interested.
  • Make a ‘sign up’ link in your about or bio section of your Facebook and Twitter page. This way, when customers see you making Facebook posts or tweeting, they can go on your bio and click for more.
  • Use incentives on your employees. Now this is especially great for local businesses, because, if we assume that most local businesses will have local people working in them, this means that these local people will be related to and friends with potential customers. So, if you make a rewards system for your employees, encouraging them to get as many email sign ups as they can, this is really going to get the number of emails you have increasing- as well as making sure you are emailing the right and relevant

Another way you could get customers to give you their email addresses, is by handing out a voucher in store and with this voucher, to redeem it, customers must provide their details. This is a slightly aggressive way to get emails but it is a win win for both parties. You get the email address (of an actual customer because you know they shop with you) and they get the discount.

 

  1. Know what time of day suits when you should send your email

 

The time of day and what day you send your emails are crucial. There is absolutely no use sending your emails at 4am because no one will read them! If you are just starting out using an email campaign software, the best thing to do is send a few at different times and, as suggested by Mail Chimp (2016), use the email programme to measure ‘delivery rate and time’ as well as ‘click through rate’. This can then tell you what time of day you get most delivery rates and the highest click through rate.  As described by Moth (2013), in a study by Mail Chimp, emails got the most activity ‘between 2pm and 5pm’. So, if you are not sure, try to aim for afternoons to begin with and analyse the relevant data to pin point the exact time and day of the week you should be sending your emails.

 

Email isn’t always plain sailing

 

If you introduce an email campaign, this could mean, as suggested by Pavlov, Melville & Plice (2008), that there is a risk of ‘information overload’. Customers could then feel that they are being bombarded with information. Just try and make sure that you don’t include too much information in your emails. Another negative about email campaigns, is that customers may not even get your emails. As suggested by Morrison (2012), customers can set up separate mailing lists for emails they kind of want to receive but don’t want to check on a daily basis.

Final few thoughts

In conclusion, to make a successful email campaign, you need to have an exciting subject line to pull the reader in, use clever animations inside the email to get customer’s attention, work out a legal way to obtain email addresses and know when to send your promotional emails. Be aware of the negative risks to email campaigns but don’t let it stop you from using a relatively cheap medium to promote your local business.

 

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Lordoftheblogs

 

References

Ellis-Chadwick, F., & Doherty, N. F. (2012) Web advertising: The role of e-mail marketing. Journal of Business Research, Vol. 65, No. 6, pp843-848

Mail Chimp (2016) Find Your Best Sending Time [Online] <http://kb.mailchimp.com/delivery/deliverability-research/find-your-best-sending-time> [accessed 5 May 2016]

Moth, D. (2013) Six case studies and infographics on the optimal time to send emails [Online] < https://econsultancy.com/blog/62688-six-case-studies-and-infographics-on-the-optimal-time-to-send-emails/> [accessed 6 May 2016]

Popick, J. (2016) 29 Ways to Collect Email Addresses for Your Newsletter [Online] <http://www.verticalresponse.com/blog/change-up-your-newsletter-get-more-clicks/> [accessed 6 May 2016]

Sundar, S. S., & Kalyanaraman, S. (2004) Arousal, memory, and impression-formation effects of animation speed in web advertising. Journal of Advertising, Vol. 33, No.1, pp7-17