Email Marketing Essentials

Marketing emails are a very cost effective way of talking to your marketplace when interacting face to face isn’t really an option.  However, as with everything, there is a right way and a wrong way.  Here are some of the areas we think about when it comes to creating emails.

Set a goal.  Knowing what you want to achieve will help with content creation. Do you want to drive people to your website, improve brand awareness or promote a particular product.  Knowing your end objective will determine how broad the content of your email is and how focused or not it needs to be.

Segment your audience to ensure that content you send is relevant to their specific needs.  A canal boater is unlikely to be interested in flares.  Splitting up your overall boating database into smaller interest groups will increase the relevance of what you send and will also improve engagement.

An email doesn’t always need to be about selling directly.  The email relationship has to be two way and you need to give back to your followers.  It is a privilege to have someone subscribe to your email list.  Think about adding value by educating or informing on a topic related to your business or area of interest.  Mix up your content to remain fresh and make sure their is a clear call to action.

Avoid bombarding the market by only emailing when you have a purpose.  Don’t frustrate by filling up inboxes on a daily basis.

Be genuine, particularly when selling.  As hard as you may try, you can’t always offer ‘the best ever deal’ and it will become obvious to potential customers very quickly.  To achieve the fear of missing out, you have to actually make people miss out.  Don’t permanently devalue your product through constant deals, or wheel out the same one over and over again.

Always use a short catchy title and make sure the first sentence grabs attention.  This is what will be seen in the inbox when the key open or delete moment occurs.

Use the 80:20 rule.  80% text and 20% is the industry guideline to help you avoid spam filters (although there is never a guarantee).  Put enough text in the email to make it worth reading, but then direct readers to specific pages on your website for more detail.  This will also help you with SEO.

Make emails compatible with mobile devices.  Around 50% of emails are read on mobile so it makes sense to ensure the user experience is good all round.

Maintain your email database constantly.  It is much better to have a quality database over a large database.  When you are charged based on database size, it makes sense to clear out those who never open your emails.

Track email statistics so you can tailor future campaigns using insights from the past.  Understanding how many opens, link clicks and interactions you achieve with different tactics will help you to improve the numbers over time.

If you don’t have a database of your own, considering working with a media partner to access theirs.  Boating Business have a large trade database and the consumer media companies can help you get your message in front of the right boat owner.

Finally, marketing emails do not have to be complex.  Unless you are a coding genius stick with a web based platform such as MailChimp or Constant Contact.  These have loads of templates to guide your through the process.  80% of business pros believe email marketing improves customer retention.  They can’t all be wrong!