Email Marketing, once it's been set up, is very easy way to communicate with your customers. It is possible to rely on the usual methods of social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ of course, but the purpose of your website, and your company is to target as many people as possible. We hate to break it to you but in this day and age, there's still plenty of potential customers out there who won't touch those 'standard' platforms with a twenty foot pole.
The usual reason for this is, without sounding too ageist, is a generation gap. Often- not all the time but often- those of you from an older generation don't want a social media profile for one reason or another, and we understand that. Concerns about privacy are often reported here, as technophobes are prone to worry about online privacy and that's fine too- each to their own. The point we're trying to make however, is that by not utilising some platforms for marketing, you risk isolating this huge, untapped source of potential customers and that all-too-valuable website traffic.
These technophobes we speak of, in our humble experience don't use social media profiles- they use email as their main contact point on the internet. After all, how many times has one of your parents forwarded you an email jam-packed with gif.s from the 90s, funny photos you've seen a million times, or old jokes? Yes, we've all been there- the generation above us are often the ones responsible for chain emails staying alive.
But this isn't a bad thing at all- what this means is that is the best possible way you can market your business or website to them directly. Email marketing has grown exponentially in the last few years, with companies like Vertical Response and Constant Contact offering a myriad of features for a low monthly fee.
Email newsletters are a very effective way of keeping your customers aware of offers and promotions within your company if you don't have the budget to invest in a mailshot campaign. There's lots of companies out there to choose from, and for a small monthly fee, allows you to design your newsletter from an extensive template collection, tailoring the look to match that of your website, before you send it out to customers.
The beauty of using newsletter software means that you can choose how many customers to include in your contact list (prices vary according to numbers) and after the newsletter has been delivered, you can easily track how many people opened the newsletter, how many read it and which embedded links they clicked on, who recommended it to their friends and who decided to opt of any further contact. This is good for keeping your database of customers fresh and saves you from contacting someone who's not interested at a later date, as well as seeing who may be interested in receiving your newsletter themselves.
Newsletters allow you to embed links to certain pages of your website, which is especially useful if you have any pages which are regularly updated. Regular contact with your customers ensures you remain fresh in their minds without hounding them on the phone - email contact is a medium that they can persue in their own time, which means they're fair more likely to digest the information that you're giving them.
A monthly newsletter is ideal, and anything less than this, like a weekly effort could be percieved as overkill and will most probably contain a lot of repeat information. You want to inform your customers, not harass them! When writing your newsletter, try and keep it quick and to the point, incorporating punchy headlines to keep the reader interested and links for them to read more about the subject on your website.
If you want to incorporate email newsletters as part of your marketing strategy, but perhaps don't have the time to spend compiling and writing out the information, gathering data and contacts, then don't worry! We can always do it for you, building your contacts book, writing your text and providing all the graphics for maximum impact.
For more details or to discuss any ideas you have, get in contact. We'll even get the tea and stickies in.