Sarah is a sales & marketing content writer, with ten years of experience within the engineering & manufacturing industry. Working both at Qimtek and on a freelance basis, she can usually be found hammering away at a keyboard or with her head in a pile of engineering drawings.
In a recent post, I cited email marketing as an easy and effective way to increase your brand awareness. But what sets a successful email marketing campaign apart from the rest? How can you ensure that your email results in a curious recipient that wants to find out more?
Why is email marketing so popular?
The growth of the internet’s prominence has resulted in email becoming one of the most widely-used platforms through which we conduct business. It’s almost unheard of for a company not to have an email address in 2017, meaning that everyone is accessible, minus the costs associated with sending out physical literature.
The flip side of email marketing is that almost everyone is doing it. This has resulted in a status quo of overflowing inboxes and emails being deleted without ever being read. In order to overcome this obstacle, there are a few guidelines you can follow which will ensure that your email stands out against a backdrop of others.
Preparation is key:
Before you get started, it’s important to categorise your data in accordance with the message you’re conveying. For instance, you wouldn’t want to send the same email to a prospect that you’ve never worked with and a long-time customer. Therefore, it’s crucial that you take some time building and sorting separate databases – the more you can break this down the better, in order to tailor the message to its intended recipients as much as possible.
Get personal:
Nobody likes to receive an email that looks like it also went to 2000 other people, so consider using mail merge to achieve a personalised end result quickly and easily. Blatant bulk emails rarely make it through spam filters and even if they do, they fail to entice many prospects.
Protect your data:
If you decide to work through your own email as opposed to an optimised email broadcasting platform, then be sure not to make the fatal error of accidentally giving away your data. For instance, if you copy and paste the email addresses into the standard field, then everyone that receives the email will see every other email address on the distribution list. There’s an easy way around this – just use the ‘BCC’ field instead. BCC stands for blind carbon copy, meaning that recipients’ emails will not appear in the header when received.
Give the option to unsubscribe:
Let’s face it – if a company doesn’t want to receive your marketing, then continuing to send them emails regardless is only going to be detrimental to your relationship. This is why it’s crucial that you clearly offer your prospects and customers the option to unsubscribe. If they do unsubscribe, then remove them from your distribution list immediately, so as to avoid any potential ramifications that could arise from ignoring their request.
Consider the subject line:
The subject line serves as a preview to the email and getting it right will vastly increase the chances of your email being read. Get it wrong, however, and your email may never even make it into your prospect’s inbox. Spam filters will scan subject lines for ‘trigger’ words, so it’s important to be wary of your phrasing. Avoid using words such as free or discount, as these will likely result in your email being flagged up as junk mail.
Make it eye-catching:
Nobody wants to – or is likely to – sit and read paragraphs upon paragraphs of text, meaning that close attention needs to be paid to the overall aesthetics of your email. Consider using images and bullet points to break up the email body and don’t be afraid to use bold, italics and underlining to draw the reader’s attention to certain aspects. Another tactic is to use varying sizes of font – just be sure that you don’t make your email look too ‘busy’ in the process. It should be clean and easy to navigate, getting straight to the point and giving lengthy introductions a miss.
Use call-to-actions (CTAs):
A call-to-action is anything that prompts the reader to take action. For instance, you may want to include a link in your email for prospects to download your capacity list or arrange a telephone call or face-to-face meeting. Anything that encourages your prospects and customers to interact will result in their engagement. This, in turn, takes you one step closer to your end goal – increased business.
Leave it to the professionals:
If the idea of performing your own email marketing is daunting, or if you simply do not have the time, then you may wish to utilise the services of a company that specialises in this field. The degree of assistance they offer can usually be tailored in accordance with your needs – anything from designing the email, right the way through to its distribution. Many agencies can also provide you with a click or open reports once your campaign is complete, showing you which of your prospects opened the email and interacted with CTAs. These reports are invaluable, as they streamline your follow-up and allow you to contact the companies displaying the most interest as a priority.
Qimtek offers an email marketing service to companies that operate within the engineering and manufacturing sectors. Please contact Dean Munkley on 01256 394500 if you wish to discuss, or email [email protected]