Making email marketing is considered a simple and easy to implement strategy. What does it take? Outlook, a bit of email addresses, and so on: forward Savoie !
However, if you look at the inbox and notice how many newsletter you delete without even looking, or if you notice how many, instead, they arrive without you ever asked and you do not care in the least, you will realize that many companies do email marketing, but only a few are doing it well.
Moreover, looking at the statistics, only 30% of the emails sent are opened (and in some cases, as in tourism, it goes down to 13%). So on closer inspection it is not as simple as it seems.
But maybe email marketing does not work?
Instead, this study reveals that it is doing very well : it is in third place (after SEO and PPC and far above the social networks) in acquiring customers, while other statistics indicate that 18% of companies attribute to email marketing about 30% of turnover .
So it works, as long as it is done properly. If you want to go straight to the point , here is a video course on the use of mailchimp , a versatile tool for doing email marketing.
In this article, instead, I wrote a reasoned checklist to check if you are on track or to understand the steps necessary to start making email marketing in the best possible way.
People, and some because, first of all
Why do you have a newsletter, or do you want to make a dem? To answer, think about why people should be interested in your email marketing action. What use do they draw?
The nodal point is this. If you do not clear it right away, you can hardly define what content to produce and then understand the budget you need. We all receive a lot of emails : what's your particular for the people who receive it? It is not a provocation. I'm trying to show you the point of view of the people you want to attract attention to .
And their attention is precious.
What interests you in your business? Try to understand it with a series of questions.
Competitive prices?
The quality of what you offer?
The peculiarity of what you offer?
The values that form the context of what you offer (for example, eco-sustainability)?
From the need to have a professional figure like yours?
So, some of the utilities offered by the newsletter can go from the offer of coupons (but do not let yourself be cannibalized by this marketing lever), to suggestions (ideas for holidays in case of travel agency), to information that are part of the system of values in which you insert your eco-sustainable products (for example: tips to avoid wasting energy), to the news (the upgrade of the program you sell has been released).
If you do not let yourself discourage ideas to produce useful content, there are many. But you must know who you want to communicate with and what are your needs or curiosity .
In these cases it is also useful to imagine one or more ideal profiles (but not too much). For each of them you can start to ask yourself:
In which age range does it fall?
Which topics is sensitive?
What degree of education do you have?
Is it very informative about your product / service?
What do you expect from your newsletter?
But how can you pleasantly surprise him?
Etc.
The questions help to understand what content to produce and what tone will have to have . To some questions it is not easy to answer, I am aware of it. But if you can answer at least some of them (or even others more relevant to your activity) the path will begin in descent.
The objectives, or the thin red texture that keeps everything together
Making email marketing should not only be useful for those who read it: it must also be useful for you using this communication system. You're not doing email marketing because it's raining outside and there's nothing on TV, right?
And in the case of companies, the utility must be monitored. It is therefore essential to establish the objectives: you need to keep the route straight.
Here is a short list:
Do you want to try to entice people to continue buying from you ? Do you have an ecommerce or even a physical store and can you make upselling or, vice versa, offer coupons to your most loyal customers? Can you ultimately retrench your current customers via email marketing?
Can you leverage the people who follow you to increase your turnover ? And so your newsletter serves to provide them with material that can forward and share with their network of knowledge and then expand your catchment area?
Do you want to use email marketing as part of customer care (such as an accountant who sends summaries of the main tax news)?
Do you already have a blog and you want to allow people to receive your articles via email to have a personal and direct communication channel and maybe to reinforce the trust they place in you?
Ultimately you have to determine which are the KPIs (key performance indicators) or the signals that you will observe to understand if the direction is the right one. And make sure you can check them.
