What do you see when you check your emails during the day?
If your inbox is anything like mine there’s probably a lot of subject lines like: ‘Blood Pressure Myth’, ‘Shoes’, ‘CarClearance_Lot’, ‘Get more traffic’, ‘Fitter body’, ‘SEO services’ etc.
They’ll also have another thing in common, they’ll be addressed to ‘Sir/Madam’ or just ‘Hello’, but they definitely won’t address you by name.
These are all what you would term as ‘spam’ emails because you didn’t ask for them.
Annoying aren’t they?
But think about your own email marketing for a moment, are you sending out emails to people who haven’t opted in? Have you bought in a list? Are your emails personalised?
In other words, are you sending out genuine, well-thought out and relevant emails or are you blanket ‘spamming’?
To spam or not to spam
If you use your very own home-grown opt-in marketing list you’re not spamming because the people on that list have agreed to give you their email addresses so you can send them offers, information and updates.
But if you’ve brought in a list, you’re sending information out to people who have probably never heard of you before and certainly aren’t all that interested in what you have to say. So by far the best way to get into email marketing (and that includes newsletters) is by using your own opt-in list.
Then you just need to follow some simple rules to make sure you keep your subscribers.
1. Be clear and upfront
When you start to build your opt-in list make sure you make it very clear what you’ll be sending and how often.
If you have different customer streams, give them a choice of what content they’ll receive to make sure everything you send is as relevant to them as possible.
This openness will help you cultivate strong and lasting customer relationships.
2. Dividing your list
As mentioned earlier, not everyone will want to receive the same information from you. Some people will be more interested in one aspect of your business than another. That’s why it’s a good idea to split your marketing list so you only send out information that’s relevant to the recipient.
Splitting your marketing in this way will yield far better results.
3. Be personal
Your customer wants to feel as though you’ve written your email just for them and no one else. They want that ‘personal service’ experience and that means personalising every email you send with their name.
Using an opt-in list and addressing the recipient by name will NOT make you a spammer. As Wikipedia states, spamming is:
“…the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages, especially advertising, indiscriminately.”
And as people have voluntarily joined your mailing list, your emails are not unsolicited.
What are your thoughts?
Leave a comment below and tell us what your thoughts are on email marketing.
