Guest Post: How to Be an Effective Email Marketer?

Email marketing is one of the largest communication medium which uses email to contact the customer. Also this is one of the oldest and widely used direct marketing strategies. Email marketing can be successful only if the marketer has a planned action, else it might be a waste of time and money. But the success ratio of email marketing is significantly higher than other forms of marketing.
Upon experience and research I have a simple and powerful note that can turn you, into an expert email marketer.

Know your target audience
Email marketing can fetch best results only if we are capable of categorizing and targeting the right audience for the right product. Users intend to mark an email as spam if they are irrelevant. This can restrict your emails to your customers the next time, even if you have a proper suggestion. It’s better to do things right at the first time. Spend as much time as possible in categorizing the email addresses of your audience on different basis like salary, relevancy to the product, etc and focus on the exact number of customers.

Publicize email subscription
It’s important to publicize the email subscription option in your website and other social platforms. Even though we have a lot of users familiar with social networking, the percentage of email users per day is higher than the users of social networking.
Also it’s important to provide an option to opt out the subscription if they find it to be irrelevant. Every email communication from the domain can contain a direct email subscription link.

Crafting your emails
It’s not just designing an email format; it’s about crafting your thoughts. Do not use the same format for all your emails with too much of notes to read. Even a hand drawn sketch could go viral. It depends on the idea and how simple and quick you are in conveying an information. Provide an offer and free gifts on every email if possible.

Get engaged with the readers
Sending a marketing email is not conveying a message. It is a choice given to a customer to opt a product, brand and or company. The information in a subscription letter should be more clear, simple and precise to the point. Do not provide too much information or offer that makes the mail look like a spam. Also usage of complicated emails with too many links and Jargons can drop the mail in to the trash.
Do not expect an overwhelming response immediately after the first campaign. Things would not turn around in a day. But make sure that you do not miss out on any reply from the customer. Check your spam box to ensure that your customer email id is not spammed. Do not respond in single line. Also do not use a standard format for the generic questions. Try to make the replies more natural and engage with the customer. Provide an option for subscribing to your website on every response.

Read and adapt
It is easy to send emails but hard to read. Do check your emails regularly and try to read every email possible. Make a note of the very good responses from your customers. Also there might be instances when you will be attracted towards an idea of someone else email. Note down these ideas and do not duplicate. Instead understand the concept which attracted you and create something new.

Always be available
It is important that you check your emails and responses frequently. Always back up yourself with an alternate internet connections. You might not be able to invest on too many connections. But you can get a fiber optic broadband connection and choose a PAYG mobile broadband as a standby. It’s good to have a slower connection than nothing. But make sure that you respond to all the emails within 24 to 48 hours and not more than that.
Above all patience is what is more important especially during the initial stages. Maintaining a schedule is necessary but doing a job repeatedly in the same fashion would bore you as well as the customer. Keep changing the email formats with new ideas but do not do it too often as well.

About the Author
Shahul is a broadband analyst from VAC media. He reviews the latest trends in the internet and reports on broadband developments for the website – www.broadbandsuppliers.co.uk. He can be contacted at shahul@vacmedia.com.