Simple Tips to Make You a Smart (and Ethical!) Email Marketer

Although technology continues to change at a rapid pace, email remains a proven avenue for all kinds of communication, including marketing. Email marketing has a long and respectable track record. It works. If you want to harness email marketing for your own business, you’ll have much more success if you prepare yourself with a little self-education. The tips presented below are a great place to start.

Above everything else, take steps to avoid being a spammer. You should never send out unsolicited marketing emails. Just because a customer has given you her email address, don’t assume that you’re free to add her to your email marketing list. Use an explicit sign-up form to build a list of current and potential customers who are genuinely interested in receiving your emails.

In order to build that interest, you should make your messages useful, interesting, and relevant. Every email you send out needs to offer up something of value to the recipient, whether it’s a great deal on a new product, an announcement of a new service your customers will like, or simply informative content that they can use. You can show off example emails on your sign-up page to help get more customers interested in joining your list.

Use images in your emails, but don’t rely on them to convey critical information. Your list of recipients will include people who always load images in their emails, and they’ll respond positively to a little visual stimulation. You’ll also have subscribers who don’t load email images without a good reason, and your messages need to connect with them too. Create images that add spice to your messages without putting any vital data into them (unless it’s repeated in the plain text of the email).

The call to action is an essential part of each of your marketing emails. This is simply an overt suggestion or instruction to the reader that tells them what you want them to do next. A “buy now” link or a “learn more” button are typical calls to action. Your call doesn’t have to be a high-pressure sales pitch or an all-or-nothing demand. Just make sure that you communicate the ideal next step for your reader to take.

While you can do a lot of good marketing work entirely within your emails, don’t let them stand on their own. Every message you send needs to have links to your website. If you’re running social media pages, (e.g. Twitter and / or Facebook) link to them too. It’s quite possible that some of your customers have strong preferences about the online channels they get information from, and well-linked messages will allow your email marketing campaign to reach everyone.

Although there’s plenty more to learn in the field of email marketing, it’s not hard to get started on your own campaign right away. The information you’ve just reviewed will give you ample grounding for the beginning of your own career as an email marketer. Give it a try; as you gain experience your marketing skills will grow by leaps and bounds.