Do you use email marketing to keep in touch with your customers?
Email marketing is an effective way to maintain contact with people who have expressed an interest in you and your company. Since those on your email list have taken the step to opt-in to receive your newsletter, they are warm leads. Email marketing may be used to advise your network about your events, to provide updates about promotions and industry news, and to keep your business top of mind with potential clients.
Each time you exchange business cards with someone at a networking event, meeting or other venue, you have a warm lead in your hand. Make the most of that warm lead by taking time to connect with your new contact online. Send a LinkedIn invitation, “like” their business Facebook page and follow them on Twitter and other social media sites if applicable. Sign up for their blog or email newsletter. Either when you initially receive the business card, or within these follow up interactions, ask permission to add your new contact to your email newsletter list.
Using an email marketing service (such as Mail Chimp, iContact, or Constant Contact) will portray your business in a more professional light than simply emailing a list of contacts directly. Additionally, an email marketing service provides valuable metrics which identify which contacts opened your email, what content is of the most interest, and which recipients are acting as your brand advocates by sharing your content with others in their networks.
For each email, you are able to view the number and percentage of emails which showed the following actions:
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Sent: The total number of emails that were sent, including those that were not received
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Bounces: Emails which were sent, but not received by your contacts (reasons are also available)
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Spam reports: Recipients who did not opt in or provide their permission to receive your newsletter
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Opt outs: Contacts who clicked “unsubscribe” to request removal from your email list
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Opens: Recipients who received and viewed your email (excludes those who viewed in a preview pane but did not click to open the email)
- Clicks: Contacts who clicked on a hyperlink within your email
- Forwards: Recipients who shared your email with others via the embedded “forward” link
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Additional information, including specific email addresses for contacts who took the actions above, is available through hyperlinks within the Reports section of your account. That marketing intelligence can help you understand which topics are of most interest to your audience, so that you can provide more content that your potential clients want.
Interested in email marketing to increase your visibility? Sign up for a free trial.
Isn’t email marketing kind of “behind the times” now with social media?
Thanks for your question, Joe. While social media is an important marketing tool and an effective way to build your brand, combining social and email marketing is the best strategy because you can increase the reach of your message to multiple audiences. Despite the huge growth of social media, only 61% of those online use it, and email is still the top online activity. In terms of preferred means to receive business information, email is preferred over social media by a majority of users in all age groups. And finally, if used effectively, email marketing offers superior segmentation, list management, and analytics.
How do you get the emails that bounced to your email contacts?
Bounced emails come in several types. By clicking on the link within your newsletter metrics, you can identify which email addresses bounced and for what reason. Some bounce types may be successfully received if they are resent once the condition is fixed (such as a non-existent address that had a typo, or a full mailbox). Other bounced email types may not be able to be delivered (such as a corporate email address that blocks external emails).