How to use email marketing to grow your business

HOW TO USE EMAIL MARKETING TO GROW

YOUR BUSINESS

Welcome we’ll start soon

‘TIS THE HOLIDAY SEASON’ "OVER THE FIVE DAY HOLIDAY WEEKEND, PROMOTIONAL EMAIL VOLUME SENT BY MAJOR RETAILERS WAS UP 27%

YEAR-OVER-YEAR, WITH THANKSGIVING DAY, BLACK FRIDAY AND CYBER MONDAY ALL SEEING RECORD EMAIL VOLUMES"

Cyber Monday:• Online sales: 33%• Over 80% retailers offered a promotion

Dir of Research, Responsys

Affordable

Measurable

Effective3

Why Email Marketing?

1. Email marketing is spam

2. Emailing is not effective

3. People don’t want to receive emails

Email Marketing Myths

4

5

Communication Preference?

Build an Email Database

6

Only send emails to people that know your business

7

1. Referrals

2. Get out and network

3. Tradeshows

4. Run a contest, offer an incentive to sign up

5. Retail - guest book or fish bowl

6. Use social media

7. Email subscriber forms

Ways to Build a List

8

Don’t buy email lists

Facebook Email Sign-Up Forms

9

Automated Subscriber Forms

10

• Gain new subscribers automatically• Automatically move new customers into Contact list• Set up Auto-responder to welcome new users

Subscriber Forms Example

11

12

Use Webinars to Grow a Database

Planning an Email Strategy

• Do you want to:– Inform– Sell more– Increase repeat business– Reduce sales cycle

13

What’s in It for me?Why should I sign up?Why should I listen?Why should I read this?14

Make your email look professional:

Use a service

15www.easycontact.com

#1 response in EasyContact customer survey:

“Designing a professional looking email” when asked “What’s most important…”

Useful educational content

Great Deals

Top of Mind

Visit Your Website

Event marketing

Holiday Greetings

16

Coupons

Hints and Tips

17

Weekly Newsletter

18

Special member limited time offer

19

Be relevant:

20

Provide value:

21

Create relationship:

22

Discount Coupon

How do YOUR customers see you?

23

How do your customers know you?– By your company name?– By your product?– By your personal name?

Add details in your sender info – Example: EasyContact - Email Marketing

How do YOUR customers see you?

24

The Subject Line

• Keep it short but WIIFM

• Don’t use - ‘Free’, ‘$$$’, ‘Save’, ‘Discount’, Caps, Excessive Punctuation

• Test different subject lines

• Ask questions

• Make a statement

• Personalize it

25

26

Subject Line: Special Mother's Day Offer: Flowers from $19.99

What do you want me to do?

27

28

Call to Action

29

Call to Action

“Click here” trap

CompellingWhatWhy (WIIFM)

Visible•Above the fold•Add social media links

Test, Test and Test Again

30

Open Rate vs Click Rate

High Open/Low Click = not meeting expectations, benefit not clear

Low Open/High Click = subject line, timing or spam

Continuous Improvement– Images vs Text– Short vs. Longer– Subject Lines– Days & Times– Follow Up

Don’t send emails from your own computer using BCC or showing your customer email database

31

Legal Stuff

• One click unsubscribe

• Include your physical address– Taken care of by my email service provider

32

Be consistent and persistent

33

Managing & Growing Email Lists

• Keep your list up to date

• Remove emails that keep bouncing

• Update email addresses

34

Measure

• Open rate

• Click through rate

• Bounce rate

• Track traffic to your website from your emails

35

Return On Investment

36

Measure the effectiveness of every campaign

Investment compared to Profit

What should I expect?

37

Message Type Open Rate Click Rate

Acquisition 10.9% 2%

Editorial 28.3% 10.3%

Marketing (~70%) 19.7% 3.7%

Research 13.7% 2.9%

Service 42% 8.9%

Other 24.4% 4.4%

“Q2 2011 Email Trends and Benchmarks”Email Experience Council and Epsilon

Mobile Users

38

• View Results• Manage/Add Contacts• View Profile• Email Status

Top “Dos” and “Don’ts”

39

Dos Ask yourself, “why should a customer

sign up for my email?

Run subject line tests

Use social media to increase open rates

Test (subject lines, frequency & timing, content)

Analyze (response rates, who’s responding…

Use clear calls to action

Keep important content “above the fold”

Respect recipients email image blocking and preview panes

Preview your emails before you send them

Don’t Assume something works

Convert print promos directly to

Get complicate your design just because you can

Over or under-mail your lists

Make subscribing or unsubscribing complicated

Say too much in a single email

Forget to use email along with your other communication channels

Forget a ‘landing page’

Ignore your results and reports

Say everything in the subject line

40

Please support our sponsor

95

years

Helping small business grow for:

41

Join Our Community

Deluxesmallbizblog.com

Facebook: Deluxecorp

Twitter: @deluxecorp

Thank You

Gregg Zastrow

(651) 490-8026

gregg.zastrow@deluxe.com

42

Sign up for another webinar at: www.BizLaunch.com/deluxe