Small Business Today Magazine AUG 2014 SIVER STONE EVENTS | Page 31

EDITORIALFEATURE

5 Surefire Tips

for Effective Email Marketing!
By Toni Harris

O

ver the past few years, research has
continued to prove the benefits of
email marketing for business: low
costs, high conversion rates, and
detailed tracking are all notable features.
But email marketing is becoming much
more than just a tool for spammers and
e-businesses. Consumers are becoming
increasingly savvy on the differences between spam and permission-based emails
and more and more of them are accepting permission-based email marketing as a
positive replacement for direct mail.
The best news is that the majority of
people who receive permission-based
e-mail open, on average, 78% of them.
Jupiter Research reports effective email
marketing campaigns can produce 9 times
the revenues and 18 times the profits of
broadcast mailings. But crafting an effective business email is both an art and a
science.

Jupiter Research reports effective email
marketing campaigns
can produce 9 times the
revenues and 18 times
the profits of broadcast
mailings. But crafting
an effective business
email is both an art and
a science.
their “safe senders” list. The second and
most important tactic is to make sure
your email marketing service provider has
a good relationship with ISPs. This will ensure that your email marketing campaigns
go into your subscribers’ inboxes, not their
junk mail folders. When choosing an email
marketing software, make sure the company has strict anti-spam policies and complies with the guidelines of Can-Spam.

Here is a list of factors, potential problems,
and effective solutions to keep in mind:
2. Images and formatting: Why do my
1. Spam! Spam! Spam! I don’t need any
Viagra! The average consumer receives
more than 300 emails a week, 62% of
which are spam. No wonder there’s such
hostility towards the industry. But spam
filters, bulk folders, and “report spam”
features are helping consumers become
more at ease about the perils of spam.
While 89% of users cited spam as a major
concern in 2003, that number dropped to
85% in 2004, proportionally to an increase
in the use of spam-fighting tools.

emails look broken? Broken email campaigns are an increasing concern among
email marketers, especially since several
companies and web-based email providers now block graphics as a measure
to combat spam. A good email service
provider allows you to create a webpage
for your email marketing campaign. The
email is sent to a secure location on the
web. The technology ensures you can
track your users’ behaviors, even if they are
reading your email campaign at the secure
web location.

So, as a permission-based business email
marketer, what can you do? One tip is
to remind your subscribers to add you to

3. Personalization and relevant content:
In a business email, one size does not
fit all. In a recent study, email users were

72% more likely to respond to a business
email if its content was based on the interests they had specified. That number
points out the absolute importance of
allowing users to choose their own interest groups and have control over which
business emails they receive. The most
popular interest categories, according to
the study, are coupons and household
goods.
But your coupon is no good unless
the user opens the email. Users in the
study said the most compelling reason
for them to open a business email is the
name in the “from” field. So it’s a good
idea to make sure your company name
is clearly stated there. Another major
factor is the “subject” line. Users cite discount offers and interesting news as the
most compelling subject lines, followed
by new product announcements and
free shipping offers.
4. Click-through and conversion: Show
me the money! So the user has opened
your email and read the content. Great!
But where’s the sale? There’s good news
here. For one, consumers are increasingly
likely to make purchases as a direct result
of a business email campaign. One-third
of users in the DoubleClick study had purchased something by clicking a link on an
email. Another 42% clicked on an email
link for more information then purchased
the product at a later time. Second, online
couponing is booming: 73% of consumers
have redeemed an online coupon for an
online purchase and 59% have redeemed
an online coupon offline.

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