Tips for effective e-mail marketing

An important trend in marketing today is the move to e-mail marketing.

Lower budgets are forcing companies to find alternative ways to get their message to potential customers.

Because mass media advertising is expensive and results difficult to measure, e-mail marketing is becoming the logical choice of small to medium-sized businesses.

Research has shown that e-mail marketing earns a substantially higher return on investment than other forms of marketing and provides a broader reach.

An important advantage of e-mail marketing is its measurability. With limited budgets, it is necessary to ensure that all funding is spent on campaigns that can be proven effective.

There are many e-mail campaign metrics that can be measured, the most popular are:

Delivery Rate: Number of successfully delivered e-mails

Open Rate: Number of opened e-mails

Click-through Rate: Number of recipients who responded to the e-mail

Unsubscribe Rate: Number of recipients who unsubscribed

Conversion Rate: Number of recipients that follow through on the call to action

Know your audience

The first step in launching a successful e-mail marketing campaign is determining your target audience. The more specifically you target your audience, the better they will relate to your message. The easiest way to learn these details is by asking relevant questions on your Web site sign-up page.

Make a good first impression

If the subject line doesn't capture your audience and cause them to open the e-mail, even the most carefully crafted content will go to waste. Your subject line is the first thing your audience sees, yet it is often the least creative aspect of the entire campaign.

The subject line should answer the question "what's in it for me"?

Make it memorable

Once your e-mail has been opened, your content must speak for itself. Just like your subject line should speak to your audience directly, your content should answer the most important question the reader has: "Why should I care?"

Make your content short and memorable. Each e-mail should deliver something useful to your audience, be it details about an upcoming promotion or information they would find interesting or entertaining.

Include your 'call to action'

Your call to action is what you want your audience to do after reading your e-mail. Do you want them to buy your product, download a document, or take a survey? Don't hide the call to action -- make it prominent and obvious.

If your e-mail grabs their attention, is relevant and keeps them interested, they are more likely to turn into your customer. After all, that's why you sent them the e-mail in the first place.

Jonny Buroker is an Internet Marketing Consultant with WSI -- We Simplify the Internet, serving south central and southwest Wisconsin.