Finding effective ways to connect with your customer base through promotional campaigns is one way to generate additional sales and revenue. The overall effectiveness of your email campaign depends largely on how many of the intended recipients actually it. When it comes to generating sales from your marketing efforts, ensuring that email gets to customers is critical for success.
Problems Getting Email Campaigns to Customers
It is more difficult to run a successful email campaign than it used to be because of spam marketing. If you have a personal email account, chances are good that you receive spam messages every day offering you “lottery” winnings or medical supplements. The spam email problem is so vast that most Internet mail providers take steps to block the worst spammers from their customers’ inboxes.
Email service providers employ two kinds of lists you should know about: whitelists and blacklists. The whitelist consists of legitimate businesses who have proper opt-in and opt-out programs plus any other email addresses your service provider allows. If your email service provider maintains a blacklist, it will consist of known spammers and email addresses that customers have reported as being spammers.
Getting on the blacklist is easier than you may think, even if you don’t spam others. Email providers keep track of how many users send your messages to their junk folder. If too many users do this, you can end up on the blacklist and your customers will never get your email campaigns.
Using Email Marketing Service Providers for Email Campaigns
One way to get around the potential blacklist issues that arise from people accidentally placing your emails in the junk folder is to use an email marketing service. These companies act as your intermediary between your email and your clients’ inboxes. In exchange for their fee, you can:
- Create newsletters or other email campaigns
- Submit your address book for distribution
- Whitelist your email address so your customers receive your campaigns
In addition, email marketing companies will take care of letting people opt out or unsubscribe from your email communications, keeping you in compliance with government regulations.
Tips to Try Before Starting Email Campaigns
In most cases, email marketing companies base their fee off the number of contacts you have in your address book and the nature of the campaign. For a business with a large contact list and ongoing email campaigns to customers, you could pay more than you might expect, even though these services are affordable options. To keep prices as low as possible:
- Create a test email to send to your clients
- Remove any incorrect or undeliverable addresses from the list
- Set a reminder to get updated email contact information during your next communication with the customer
These are simple fixes and can add up to significant savings. Remembering to obtain current email addresses will also increase your pool of potential leads. Once you ensure email campaigns get to the right audience, you can focus on creating valuable content for each campaign.
