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| Seven Tips: Guarantee Results From Email Marketing
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| by David Ehrlich, President, Track Marketing Group |
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| While it is possible to obtain marketing email lists, your most valuable email list is current clients and warm prospects that have made some contact with you in the past. Email marketing is best served to reach "friends of the organization" prospects. Some of the tips will also apply to commercial lists as well. |
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| Track Marketing Group can help you write. |
| 1. |
Get Personal |
| 2. |
Formatting Trick |
| 3. |
Special Offer |
| 4. |
Conversational Informal Style |
| 5. |
Complement Offline Marketing Effort |
| 6. |
Link to Action Step |
| 7. |
Easy Referrals |
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| 1 - Get Personal |
| using email software or hiring a marketing company, you can merge data into all parts of your email (subject, title, and body). The first step is to look through your database(s) and identify all fields available for each record. For example, you will likely know name and address. You may also know attendance history at recent events, purchase history for specific products, birthday, etc. Once you identify the data available, the next step is to write an email that contains one or more personal details. |
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| 2 - Formatting Trick |
| One option for personalizing the email is to create a "header" message at the beginning of your email. For example, you could write an email as outlined below. Notice that the portion above the *** appears personally written, as if you took time to write to John personally. "John" and "ABC" are fields from your database. This format makes the recipient feel special, relative to other clients. |
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Dear John,
How are you? Here's some important information we're sending to our clients. I want to be sure you get a copy. You may be interested in the part concerning XYZ. I hope everything is going well at ABC and hope you're enjoying the new year! - David.
****
Important information on....
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| When we employ this format, we always receive responses from clients who feel a personal communication occurred. Other than some technical assistance from software, the fact is that we have spoken to them on an individual basis but reached them on a massive scale. |
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| 3 - Special Offer
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| while direct marketing efforts should make an offer of some kind, there is an opportunity to make a special or exclusive offer via email.
Back in the early days of the web (1995), people expected web special deals. People now realize that the web is commercial and they rationally know that the web doesn't guarantee deals. However, hope springs eternal! Therefore, use your email to mention a special offer that you can only make via email.
There are multiple ways to justify why you can make "more" special offers via email. You can reference the immediacy (must sell X by tomorrow or I can give you tickets to the show in town now if you buy today) or the lower cost of the email delivery, or the personal one-on-one (since you are a friend of the organization and a great customer). However you decide to state the offer, make sure it sounds sincere and provides the reader with a sense that they're now on the inside and getting benefits by saving time, money, or receiving some benefit by acting now. |
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| 4 - Conversational Informal Style |
when composing your email, pretend you're speaking to a friend and write with a conversational manner consistent with an email to a friend.
A traditional marketing paragraph might be:
XYZ offers the following special. Expires x/x/2001. Act now!
Now, let's see how we can write with a manner appropriate for email. (Note 3 merged data fields)
Hi Joe - ABC could take advantage of this special offer - I know that you used the service last year with good results. We're holding the offer until 2/15/2002 since we know many clients said they didn't have time due to the holidays - I can relate! Hope you and Sally had a great holiday! |
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| 5 - Complement Offline Marketing Effort |
| while email marketing is powerful, the greatest results come from a targeted and coordinated joint effort between offline & online. The email portion will catch some people's attention while traditional direct mail will appeal to others. The direct mail component allows you to fully illustrate the offer and provide a more permanent impression. A powerful example is to mail a direct marketing piece first and then reference it in your email and "one-up" the offer. You can imply that while many receive the direct mail piece, you are special and deserve a better offer. |
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| 6 - Link to Action Step |
| add a link to more detail on the offer and a data collection form to help move the person to the next step of the offer or sale. While some will reply via phone or snail mail, others will prefer to respond or request more information via the web. |
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| 7 - Easy Referrals |
since email is so easy to forward, consider an offer that encourages referrals.
However you decide to leverage email in your overall marketing program, be sure to respect people's privacy, allow people to easily opt out of receiving emails, and avoid over emailing to your list. If you have more questions about online or offline direct marketing, email dave@trackmktg.com. |
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