Safe and Effective Email Marketing

Email marketing increases access to your customers and targets in a cost-effective manner. Use these five steps to get your campaign started.

Define your objective

What do you want to accomplish? Do you want to cross-sell services to existing customers? Or, do you want to encourage existing customers to bring in their friends and family members to open new accounts? These are two separate objectives, accomplished via two separate strategies. Defining your objectives upfront helps you reach goals more efficiently, and helps you establish a mechanism to measure the program’s success.

Set your price

It is a mistake to believe that any customer acquisition or sales growth program can be free. At a minimum, you need to direct time and/or labor towards implementing email collection tools, writing content and distributing your newsletter. Determine what you are willing to pay, both upfront and on an ongoing basis, to develop and implement the newsletter program.

Know the laws

Overlooking SPAM laws will alienate your customers and damage your brand. Get in the know by reading the FTC overview of the CAN-SPAM Act. Next, find a reputable third-party distribution service such as MailChimp. A third-party provider will make sure you are in compliance and minimize the likelihood that you’ll get banned.

Define mechanisms for email address collection

The largest obstacle to any successful email marketing campaign is building a list of people to receive those emails. Contrary to popular belief, list-building is tough work. Generally, you have to bribe people to subscribe. You can do this by giving away a coupon, an e-book, a free online course, an entry to a contest, etc. Make sure you promote your giveaway/bribe everywhere you possibly can: prominently on your Web site, Facebook page, Twitter, and blog, plus in your branches, and in ads where applicable. Be clear about what your audience will get in return for subscribing, and remember to deliver the goods.

Map your content

You can churn out your newsletter content more efficiently when you have a formula. For example, you might decide that each newsletter will contain the following:

• One offer
• Two FAQs
• One informative article
• One customer testimonial

Keep at it

Lastly, you need to make a commitment to stick with your email marketing program for at least 12 months. Since you have already defined your objectives, you can assess your results quarterly. If necessary, refine your tactics along the way — just don’t scrap the whole program without giving it a chance to be successful.

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