Building an email marketing list is only half the battle of developing a great email marketing plan. So what’s the other half? Determining what to send out. Emails should be regular, but not overbearing, and that regularity tends to make the ideas for a good email run dry quickly. So what type of emails should you be sending out to potential customers? Here are five of the best types of emails to send, according to Vertical Response.
Makeover your sales emails.
Sales don’t do much good if no one knows about them. Send out an email detailing what the current sale is. The subject line should make the sale clear right away, while the body of the email should be short and simple — entice them with a sale and give them an end date to encourage fast action, don’t send a novella to their inbox.
Send out advice and tips emails.
The emails that you send should be worthwhile, or you’ll get lots of clicks on that unsubscribe button. Saving money is a worthwhile reason to stay subscribed, but so is learning something new. Consider sending out an email with a tip, tutorial or recipe related to your business or product. Brainstorm the things your customers may want to hear about and use those ideas to reach out with that email list.
Learn exactly what your customers want with a survey.
Part of successful marketing is understanding exactly what your customers wants and what their pain points are — and what better way to do that then to ask your customers directly? Sending out a survey allows you to gather valuable information that you can use in future marketing campaigns (and, yes, emails) as well as decisions such as which products to stock. Taking a survey isn’t exactly something most people enjoy, so make it more enticing with a discount for anyone who participates.
Embrace the email newsletter.
An email newsletter lets customers know what’s happening with your business, outside of things like sales and coupons. The newsletter helps create a more long term relationship by showing who you are and what you care about. Include things like new products, tips and advice, company accomplishments, employees of the month and more.
Encourage re-orders.
For companies that sell items that customers frequently purchase again, consider sending out an email to remind customers when it’s almost time to repurchase. This takes some time to set up and a platform that will track purchases and automatically send those reminders, but can be a big help both for customers who don’t want to run out and your sales.
Emails remain a powerful marketing tool — but only if you use them right. Part of that is email etiquette like not sending out emails too frequently, but another big part of that is providing valuable information by using a variety of different types of emails. Consider jazzing up your emails with sales, tips, surveys, newsletters and reminders.