Email Marketing is thought of as one of the most successful tools when it comes to brand building and converting prospects into customers.

It’s not only powerful in reach, but also very cost effective. In the era of unsubscribes and customers being highly attuned to the ways marketing messages are thrown at them from every possible angle, how do we make best use of an email and our connections?

Email must-do’s

The most important thing to remember is that you can only carry out unsolicited electronic marketing if the person you’re targeting has given you their permission.

However, there is an exception to this rule known as the ‘soft opt-in.’ It applies if the following conditions are met:

• You’ve obtained a person’s details in the course of a sale or negotiations for a sale of a product or service.
• The messages are only marketing similar products or services that your company offers.
• The person is given the opportunity to refuse marketing when their details are collected, and if they don’t opt out at this point, are given a simple way to do so in future messages.
• When you send an electronic marketing message, you must tell the recipient who you are and provide a valid contact address for them to reply and make further contacts.

Step-by-Step guide….

Step 1: Build the database

The days of buying databases are long gone- the approach can result in SPAM and an avalanche of unsubscribes.

Instead, we recommend you actively capture the email addresses of prospects and customers that land on your website and social media channels (organic growth).

Step 2: Create the right content

We see email marketing not as a one-off event but more so as an opportunity to build a relationship. So, bombarding your contacts with bald-faced product or service sales is not an option! The point is to demonstrate value and inspire confidence. In other words- build the relationship!

Try to create content that is insightful, interesting and helpful!

Step 3: Choose the right email marketing platform

There is plenty of choice out there with some software being a lot more popular and advanced than others! The choice is yours but it’s worth researching what’s on offer. Prices can vary too!

The right email marketing platform can help you save a lot of time as it can integrate with your social media, manage any unsubscribes and bounces for you and offer reporting mechanism- handy for that monthly report!

Step 4: Measure, measure, measure!

Emailing platforms also help you measure the effectiveness of your campaigns, which is essential for a long-term success! Some of the features usually include: the open rate; click-through rate (CTR); number of forwarded emails; SPAM and bounces.

By embedding your campaign code into Google Analytics, you get additional info correlating the number of leads generated and sales closed resulted from the Email Campaign rather than through e.g. organic traffic.

Step 5: A/B testing

To further improve the success rate of your marketing campaign you can run A/B testing. The usual rule would split your database 50/50, where message A goes to 50% of your contacts and message B to remaining 50%.

We however would recommend 20/20/60 split. Like above, 20% of your contacts receive message A, another 20% receive message B. Once you compered success rate of A and B messages, the winning one is then being sent to the 60% of your contacts.

You can experiment and test on message subject, image, font, colours and importantly- your Call To Action (CTA).

STEP 6: Success

The key to success is in building a long-term relationship and then closing the deal with a view of repeated custom. You need the right process in place from the day one! And then use the data collected to improve your return on investment (ROI). What days of the week have better open rate, what time of the day is best?

Our Tips:

• Don’t assume people want to hear from you!
• Don’t write like a used car salesman!
• Don’t email without the permission!
• Don’t ignore your reports!

Umbrella Marketing TEAM

Here at Umbrella Marketing TEAM we understand Email Marketing inside-out. If you would like more information on what we do, outsourcing or indeed- email marketing, please do not hesitate to contact us.

[email protected]

01244 515569