Why Your Business Needs Email Marketing

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✓ WHY YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS EMAIL MARKETING

Email marketing is an integral part of your communication with clients. Whether you have news about a new product or service, or want to announce the hire of a new employee, it’s important that you keep your customers informed about your business.

How else can your business benefit from email marketing? Check it out:

  • Build a connection and credibility with your customers.
  • Reach more of your target audience. With email marketing, 90% of email gets delivered to the intended recipient’s inbox, whereas only 2% of your Facebook fans see your posts in their news feed. This is because Facebook limits the number of times your posts appear in the news feed in an attempt to drive brands towards their paid advertising options. On Facebook, if you post an update to your 10,000 fans, only about 200 of them will even have a chance of seeing it in their news feed. Alternatively, if you send an email campaign to 10,000 subscribers, at least 9,000 of them would receive it in their inbox. This means your message is 45 times more likely to be seen using email than Facebook.
  • It can reach people on any device.Whether using mobile phone, tablet, or desktop computer – a professionally designed and written email looks great and is easy to open and navigate on any device.
  • Contact your customers more often. Take advantage of sending out weekly, bi-weekly or monthly emails to bring attention to special offers and build brand awareness.
  • Create an immediate call to action. What is it that you want your customers to do? Whether it’s simply having your customers visit your website or take advantage of a special promotion, email marketing gives you your own advertising platform.

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✓ WHY HAVE US HANDLE YOUR EMAIL MARKETING

At Gab Communications, we are experts at promoting businesses and events through carefully crafted content, design that packs a punch, and magnetizing PR material. We are professionally trained writers specializing in both the business and creative ends of editorial.

When it comes to email marketing, we know what works and what doesn’t. We also strive to get to know your business on a personal level so that we can create emails that reflect your brand’s unique personality. Cookie cutter emails with no real character or pizzazz are definitely not our style.

✓ WHAT WE CAN DO FOR YOUR EMAIL MARKETING CAMPAIGN

  • Determine an effective strategy. Based on what your business’s needs and objectives are, we’ll recommend a schedule and the type of content and promotions that will be most impactful.
  • Manage your email list. Whether you store client emails through an internal database or collect them via your website, we are capable of assembling and continuously updating your email subscription list.
  • Design a custom template. We’ll brand it with your business logo, colors and contact information.
  • Create content that packs a punch. Just tell us the topic(s) you want your email to focus on and leave the rest to us.
  • Develop a CTA (Call-To-Action) button. “Visit our website”, “Click here to take advantage of this special offer”, “Enter our contest today”, etc. These are just some examples of CTAs, and yes – we make sure each of your email includes at least a few of them.
  • Send your email. We will always send the email to you first for approval before it is actually sent to your subscription list. Once approved, we’ll schedule a specific time through the email service provider for the email to be sent out.
  • Report back to you with all the stats. This is one of the best perks of email marketing! We’ll send you an updated report on how many of your subscribers opened, forwarded, shared, and clicked on your email.

We handle everything with your email marketing campaign – leaving you free to run your business!

✓ LET’S DO IT.
Give us a call (410-446-5696) or shoot us an email (Hayley@gababoutit.com) and let’s get to work on your email campaign!

Email Marketing Do’s and Don’ts

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Think email marketing might not work for your business? Think again. Check out these email marketing stats that were recently released by salesforce.com.

  1. 44% of email recipients made at least one purchase last year based on a promotional email. 
  2. 33% of email recipients open email based on subject line alone. 
  3. Roughly half of an email list will be active – either opening or clicking on emails.
  4. Subject lines fewer than 10 characters long had an open rate of 58%. 
  5. Personalized subject lines are 22.2% more likely to be opened. 
  6. For B2B companies, subject lines that contained “money,” “revenue,” and “profit” performed the best. 
  7. 64% of people say they open an email because of the subject line.
  8. 7 in 10 people say they made use of a coupon or discount from a marketing email in the prior week.
  9. 39% of marketers have no strategy for mobile email.
  10. 72% of B2B buyers are most likely to share useful content via email.
  11. Monday emails had the highest revenue per email. 
  12. 27% of consumers were more likely to say their favorite companies should invest in more email. 
  13. Emails that include social sharing buttons have a 158% higher click-through rate.
  14. Women click 10% more often than men on mobile emails. 
  15. 82% of consumers open emails from companies.
  16. 64% of decision-makers read their email via mobile devices.

So, what’s the recipe for a perfect email campaign? Here are a few do’s and don’ts to consider before sending off your next piece of communication.

– DO –

Craft a killer subject line. In email marketing, it’s almost always the subject line that causes people to open or delete your email, so putting the right combination of words together is pretty much imperative to the email’s overall success. If you’re not a marketing vocabulary genius, that’s totally okay. Here are a few tips for creating an effective subject line:

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  • In the words of Don Draper (by the way, did anyone catch the Mad Men premier last night?), make it simple, but significant. Steer clear of lengthy or overly wordy subject lines. Those with 28-39 characters typically have the highest click-through rate.
  • Ask questions. If you’re sending out an email about an upcoming event or in-store sale, a few ideas could be: What are your plans this weekend? Or Want to know about something amazing happening Friday?
  • Be persuasive. Words like free, sale, party, event make for great marketing language.
  • Include a call-to-action. What do you want your audience to do? Make it clear whether you want them to go to your website, visit your store, sign up for a contest, etc.
  • Don’t be too sales-y or pushy in your subject line. The folks at MailChimp tell their customers “when it comes to email marketing, the best subject lines tell what’s inside, and the worst subject lines sell what’s inside.”

– Make the email design attractive. Whether you use a theme or hire a designer to develop a custom template, it’s important to stand out and look clean, vibrant and exciting.

– Set clear expectations. Sometimes I’ll open an email from a business and I’ll skim all the way down without finding any real purpose for the campaign other than just to plant their name in your inbox. Ahhhhhhh. Can I just stand on my soapbox for a sec and say that annoys the living heck out of me? What a surefire way to get people to either unsubscribe or report you as spam. Please don’t be that business. Make the point of your email clear from the get-go. An attention-grabbing subhead will usually do just the trick: “There’s Lots Going On At Katie’s Photography Studio This Month…Read On To See What We’re Up To!” or “XYZ Services, Inc. Was Just Awarded Small Business Of The Year! Check Out Our Major Accomplishment”

– Include a call to action right away. OK, so they’ve opened the email – what next? Be up front and clear about this. “Visit our website now through Sunday to get 40% off all orders!” or “Like us on Facebook to be entered into our spring giveaway!” are a few examples of effective calls to action.

– Send from a real person, not a generic company account. Guys, there’s absolutely nothing personal about sending from info@xyzcompany.com or emails@hairsalonforyou.com. This rings especially true for small businesses who set themselves apart by offering community-based, face-to-face relationships with customers. Bottom line: People will recognize an email from johnsmith@smithfamilybuilders.com – making them much more likely to open it than if it were from an unfamiliar name or address.

– DON’T –

– Bombard your subscribers. Depending on the kind of business you run, keep emails to a minimum. If you offer daily or weekly specials, one email a week is ideal. If you offer occasional specials, deals or news (seasonal, monthly, etc.), once or twice a month works just fine. Any more than this and you’re taking the risk of just flat out annoying your subscribers.

– Write lengthy, wordy paragraphs. People will skim through your email, so this is not the time or place to write a novel about your latest sale, achievement, new hire, store opening, big event, etc. Keep it short and to the point. Use bulleted or numbered lists, and limit paragraphs to 2-3 sentences tops.

– Forget to include crucial information. Don’t forget to include your contact information (all phone numbers and email addresses), links or social sharing icons to your website and social media pages.


 

hayley-gable-bowermanFor the last decade, Hayley has been leaving her mark creatively on small, independently-owned businesses through editorial- and design-based marketing strategies. As a believer in the art of storytelling and the influence of a strong brand, her goal is to unlock the value that all small businesses possess and use it to their advantage using creative, strategic marketing methods.