When many people think of the term email marketing they often shiver at the thought of using this marketing technique. They begin to think of how their own email’s inbox fills up with unnecessary emails within mere hours each day. However, I am here to tell you that this is not email marketing done properly, it is just spam. I know if you are reading this that you want to keep your company in positive light and stay away from unethical business practices. Below are ways to not only hold to ethical email marketing standards, but also give you better conversion ratings as well without spamming potential customers.
Rule #1: Always allow an easy way for email recipients to unsubscribe
One of the most frustrating things about getting spam is that you are typically unable to unsubscribe from it. Instead, you have to add them to a spam senders list or create a rule that will filter the emails out of your inbox. You do not want to be grouped with these people. You should always make it easy for email recipients to unsubscribe from receiving newsletters or frequently sent emails.
Not only is giving an unsubscribing option an ethical way to approach sending regular emails to people, but it is also a good way to gain respect. Even those who unsubscribe from your emails will probably remember your companies’ name. They probably just do not want to receive regular updates. However, if they recognize that you are not a desperate company, then they are much more inclined to return to do business with you in the future.
Rule #2: Limit the number of emails each recipient receives
It does not matter how cool or how interested I am in the topic of the emails, if I get too many of them I am quickly growing tired of all the emails. For example, I had a forum that I visited all the time last year send me daily emails of the hottest topics, new members, etc. I was interested in a lot of what was written in them, but I did not feel that I needed a daily email on the topics. It became very annoying, and within a couple of weeks of receiving these, I quickly unsubscribed from receiving them all together.
My personal philosophy of overcoming this is to never send potential buyers more than one email per month. Once per month is frequently enough that you will keep your business fresh on the memory of those who are on your email list. It is long enough though that they will not grow too tired of receiving them. More than not if they just delete your email once per month, they will not spend the time necessary to unsubscribe in most cases. They might delete it, but when they need one of your products, they may return to that email later on.
Rule #3: Be relative to what they might be looking for
I have purposely signed up for newsletters before. When they are done properly, I really do not mind receiving them. However, when the emails are done poorly and without any thought being involved, it can quickly make me unsubscribe. One of the most frustrating things about newsletters is that they are often automatically generated. However, I want to encourage you to put some effort into yours. When you want to sell a specific item, you should carefully look at those who previously bought that item from you. Make sure you target them. You may find that you have better conversion ratings when you do not send emails to everyone on your list and only target specific ones.
It is, however, acceptable to place multiple things into one newsletter. For example, let’s say that you subscribed to me on this page. You are probably most interested in email marketing. It would probably be wise for me to only send you emails that are relative to email marketing. However, in an organized newsletter I could also write brief things about Pay Per Click and Article Marketing as well. You may be less interested in those topics, so they would not be the primary purpose. However, I could track what links you clicked on and determine whether you gained interest in it or not so in the future I might send you a newsletter on other topics as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment