Email marketing can be a great way to get traffic through your site and generate leads but let’s be honest – no one actually wants spam. You need to find a way to make your content not only openable but clickable too and there are lots of tricks you can try to achieve this and here are just a few.
Cull Your Send List
Data lists can be expensive and despite the promises of quality most are charged based on quantity but quantity isn’t going to produce conversions. Go through your mailing list and remove all those addresses that aren’t producing any click-throughs. A lot of people aren’t going to notice that really small ‘remove from mailing list’ link at the bottom of your email and even if they do they’re very unlikely to actually bother clicking on it.
Revamp Your Data Capture Methods for Email Marketing
You know how expensive buying data lists can be but a lot of business rely on these purchased lists for a good proportion of their total list. Another common method is just adding anyone who makes a conversion and has to fill their details out. Look at other methods you could use on your site to encourage people to leave their details. If you have a product that’s out of stock do you offer to email users when it’s back in stock? Running a free competition every month is not only a good way to build some valuable links but it also encourages people to leave their email addresses behind too.
Check How It Displays In An Inbox
When you get home from work and find half a dozen envelopes on your doorstep plastered with insurance logos and credit card companies you don’t bank with you’re probably not even going to give them a second thought as you throw them away. The inbox is the same if it has a company name as the sender and a title talking about your latest special offers it’s not even going to be noticed let alone clicked. Make sure your emails are sent from a human being rather than your company name and give them an interesting and specific title to capture people’s attention.
Double Check It Then Double Check Again
A company I used to work for many years ago used to send the same mailer out every week and just change the main special offers for that week. When I started working for them I gave it a quick proof read and found several spelling mistakes and even a link going to another client’s website and another link that ended up on an old 404. It’s easy to get complacent when you’re doing the same task over and over again but it’s very important you do double check everything you send and get a second pair of eyes to double check it too.
Don’t Send It Just For The Sake Of It
A lot of business send a mailer out every week without fail but email sends are like blogs and twitter updates, there’s no point doing them if you’re just doing them for the sake of it. Make sure you’ve actually got something interesting or informative to say and if you’re just pushing the same products or services you send every week don’t bother. Make each send different by sending a mini blog post style email, talk about your industry or offer some genuinely useful help and advice, you could write your content by yourself or it could be provided by any other writing company. If you sell bathroom accessories send a mailer on how to change a washer, if you sell mosaics send a mailer on how to design your own mosaic rather than the same list of products.
Of course, if you want to use direct email marketing, you should know not only ways how to improve it but the main cons too.
First of all, you Need Professional Help for Successful Direct Marketing Campaigns
Unless you plan to hire a local teen to hand-deliver flyers to doorsteps and cars windows in parking lots you will probably need to hire a marketing professional to help you with your direct marketing campaign. Here is an email list of companies.
There are many skills required to create an ad campaign including design, targeting the right market, mail list purchases, and analyzing your results.
Direct mail marketing can pay off but it is more likely to pay off when you hire a direct mail marketing professional who knows your business to help you develop marketing strategies and implement initially targeted mail marketing campaigns.
Secondly, Direct Mail Marketing Failure Rate is High
Direct marketing is never as simple as it sounds and the failure rate is extremely high. For most direct mail marketers the direct mail return ratio equates to a loss. When profits do result from a successful marketing campaign they are usually a single digit success.
For example, if you send out 1,000 postcards at a cost of $750 (printing and postage) you need to generate enough sales leads to at least pay for the ad campaign. If you run a clothing boutique and your average customer spends $100 per visit you would need to get 7 or 8 new “average” customers to break even.
Direct mail marketing is about building new relationships and getting the word out about your business – it is unlikely you will get rich from direct mail marketing.
Third, Non-targeted Direct Mail Marketing Campaigns Always Fail in Some Way
If you send out inserts through a local direct mail advertising company you will reach potential customers in your local community. But you will also waste money reaching all the other folks in your geographic area that are not specifically targeted.
Direct mail marketing campaigns must be targeted to be successful. For example, you send out 10,000 solicitations to your community and get few or no responses. Was it the address list? Did people even read your ads? Or, were your ads simply ineffective?
General direct mailings are rarely worth the money unless your business serves an entire community (i.e. church or grocery store). It is always better to consider targeted marketing which will cost you more to develop and implement.
Moreover, Analyzing Results of Direct Mail Marketing is Difficult
Creating a direct mail ad campaign that allows you to track its success is hard. The best way to do this is to offer coupons or discounts that require the customer to bring in the ad. Other than offering incentives (that further eat into your profits) you have virtually no way of tracking the success of your ad campaign.
If you require customers to bring in generic ad coupons at best you will be able to see which mass mailings brought in the most customers based on the ad itself (the type of coupon or discount offered). Unless each coupon has a unique code or another way to identify a specific customer you will not know where they live, their sex, age, or capture any other important marketing demographics.
So, it is One of the Least Cost-effective Ways to Advertise
Direct mail marketing can and does work for many businesses. But only direct mail campaigns that are thoughtfully developed, implemented, and analyzed are worth investing in. To simply send out ads in the mail on your own is the least cost-effective way to advertise.
If you do not have the budget to hire a professional marketing company to help you develop a large targeted marketing ad campaign you are unlikely to see much success for small campaigns conducted on your own.
Author’s Bio: Linda S. Davis – writer in 500WordEssay company. She is interested in psychology and marketing. Linda is a loving mother and the best teacher for her students. As well she likes reading books about education.
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