Don’t Forget About Email Marketing

Do you send out a regular newsletter to business contacts? Do you send an introductory email to all new clients and potential leads?

We hope you answered yes to one or preferably both of those questions. Email marketing is still relevant in 2014. If you’ve let your newsletters lapse or need a design refresh, here are some things to keep in mind:

Mobile: The statistics say most people open their emails on their mobile devices. We even noticed last year that most of the people on our email list opened our newsletter on their iPhones. How do your emails look on smart phones and tablets? Are they easy to read? Eye catching? If not, we suggest a redesign so when a contact opens your email on their phone, they want to read it and follow the links.

Subject Lines: Unless you have magical powers, you probably get dozens of newsletters and emails about promotions or sales. Think about your own inbox. What makes you open certain promotional emails over others? The subject lines. When writing your own email subject lines, make sure they’re catchy, thought-provoking and interesting. Also, don’t make them too long! Short, to the point and compelling enough for your contacts to click on your newsletter above all others.

Gmail: In 2013 Google changed its Gmail mailbox format so that emails are automatically filtered into different mailboxes, with newsletters and promotional emails getting put in a “Promotions” inbox. Some marketers thought this change would mark the death of email marketing, which we think was a little dramatic. Having a great subject line that captures attention would help your email be found in the promotions tab. And what some brands have done is send out an email asking their contact to manually file their emails in the primary tab. Which is also a good option.

Content: Last, but definitely not least, you want to have quality content in your emails. Make people want to click on links to your website to learn more about your business and what you do. And better content often means shareable content. Put things in your emails that compel contact to forward them on to their friends or colleagues.