The Focus 5: How to Do Email Marketing the Right Way

Business owners avoid email marketing for a variety of reasons: they find it intimidating, they don’t know where to start, they are afraid of being perceived as spammers, etc. But a well-crafted email marketing campaign can seriously boost your business. Here are our tips for how to do email marketing right.

Creating a Successful Email Marketing Plan

1. Consistency is key. You should plan on sending out an email at least once a month. Our favorite formula is one promo email and one basic newsletter each month. The promo doesn’t necessarily have to include a sale–think of it more as a quick way of connecting with potential clients. Though giving discounts or special offers of course doesn’t hurt, it could also be a quick tip, a recipe, or a fun employee feature. The newsletter can be more educational in design. Think about including business updates, industry news, etc.
2. Use an email program. Don’t just send it from your inbox! If you are sending emails from your personal email, you are losing valuable information. You don’t know how many people opened the email, forwarded it on to someone else, or clicked on the links. Email programs provide these features, and they can also reformat your email so that it will look good on mobile devices.
3. Links are great! Try to have at least 3 (but probably no more than 5 or 6) links in your email. You want to have links to your social media accounts, your blog, and maybe even an interesting article on another site. And then don’t forget to pay close attention to what people are clicking on!
4. Include photos or other images. Most people aren’t going to read your email if at first glance it just looks like a wall of text. Related–don’t make your emails too long. If you have more to say about a topic, put it on your blog, and then have a link in your email to “read more.”
5. Subject lines matter! If your subject line sounds boring or generic, people aren’t going to open the email. So make it compelling! The best way to figure out how to write your subject lines is to test them. Most email programs will let you do an A/B split so you can try out two subject lines and see which one gets more opens. Always try to beat your best performer. And be careful about what you include in subject lines: generally we suggest staying away from symbols, especially dollar signs.

Have any additional questions about creating a killer email marketing campaign? We’re always happy to chat. We can also provide a complimentary consultation about how Focus can help you devise a campaign that will really bring in business. Contact Niki at [email protected].

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