Email Marketing: 3 Basics to Build Emails

by Andrew Millar

Your company has its own website. You are not complete slouches even though it is by now 8 years old and you are badly in need of a website redesign. You have begun to notice that you personally are buying more and more products and services for yourself on the web and you’re wondering if there’s an opportunity for your company here. The ‘3 Basics to Build Emails’ is a simple reminder and commonsense guideline.

A basic fundamental of business and the internet is that potential customers need to visit your site to do business. This applies to whether you have a bricks and mortar store or a virtual one on online. Today’s customer uses the Google or Bing or Yahoo! Search function to find what he wants. You want him to think of you when he is looking and there are several ways to do this.

1. You can engage him through social media (Twitter, Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, etcetera) so that he encounters your presence as he looks up his interests. The new algorithms for search engines call this social signaling and give it priority because they have decided that this represents an authentic interaction, not one that can be easily manipulated.
2. You can write and post regular blogs featuring information of interest to your prospective customers. Search engines are designed to index this information in such a way that when your prospect searches for that information, your blog (and website) will be listed.
3. You can send him via email directly targeted offers to engage him in the sales process. This requires you to have his email in the first place. In the past you could have purchased an email list purporting to be of those interested in your product. Years have passed and everyone gets way too much email now. We are unlikely to open or even accept email from sources unknown to us and, therefore, purchased lists are ineffective. Not to mention that the addresses themselves are often inaccurate or fabricated.

Build That List

1. The best and simplest way to get an email address is to ask for it. Every place that you interact with the public is an opportunity for you to ask for their email address. When they visit your website, your blog or your social media post offer them a sign-up form.
2. Give them a reason to sign up. Offer to exchange something of value: a newsletter about information your customers have already said they want to know. Next to the sign-up form position a button that allows them to access archives of previous newsletters. Now they know what they’ll be getting.
3. Make it even more worthwhile. Offer them an incentive like a white paper about the use of your products or services in their lives. The idea is to give them something of such obvious value to them that they willingly provide their email address in order to receive the information.

These ‘3 Basics to Build Emails’ are a starting point that enables you to slowly develop a reliable list of prospective customers who have already demonstrated a desire and a willingness to engage with your company and its products. The sales process has begun!