Crafting Your Perfect Email Campaign

Choosing how and when your business should use an email campaign can be an agonizing decision. How can you expect to effectively use email marketing for your business when you find that even you get inundated with too much email? How much is too much, and when will your target market find that your message is worth reading?

The important factors that will help you remain on the short list in people’s inbox and craft your perfect email campaign are timeliness, value, and relevance.

Timeliness

There’s a natural ebb and flow to sales and it’s imperative that you find yours. March and April are excellent months for bathing suit sales due to spring break and the onset of warm weather. Pumpkin bread and apple cider light up the shelves and are prominently featured in the autumn. When is your product hot? How can you generate interest in it all year long? Try tying your product or service to what is going on in your customers’ lives, whether it’s related to home improvement, luxury services, lifestyle enhancements, or business aids.

Value

Have you checked out Groupon online? They have really got mass-market appeal because people who opt to receive communications from Groupon have come to anticipate a tremendous value from the company. This doesn’t mean you have to give away the farm, but it may be helpful for you to throw a loss leader (product sold at or below cost but often needs accompanying items to be useful) out there to get people in your door. Find out what excites your customer base and use that to your marketing advantage.

Relevance

So you have the perfect message and you’re ready to launch your online campaign. No matter how amazing the marketing, if you are explaining the allure of your coffee to people who aren’t coffee drinkers, then your advertising is missing the mark. Find out what is important and useful to people who align with your product or service offerings and strike a chord with them.

To reach out to a qualified customer base, you need to capture them.

Capture a qualified marketing list by asking customers to provide their email address so you can send them preferred customer offers. Invite people to “Like” you on Facebook through your advertising, in your product sheets, and even on your products’ packaging. Ask existing customers to share your website or newsletter with friends who may be interested in your products or services or offer a referral bonus to clients who refer new customers. Once you have a relevant base, you’ll have a more objective measure of how your campaign is received by your target market.

Next up: We’ll teach you how to map out your email campaign.