As an entrepreneur or marketer with an interest in growing your business in the Indianapolis area, you’ll likely be familiar with the ins and outs of traditional marketing, social media, and e-commerce. Maybe you’ve dabbled in a little of each, or maybe you’re even an expert in one particular area. No matter your expertise, you’ll want to make sure that you’re keeping up with the latest trends and methods to effectively communicate with potential and existing customers in this growing region of the country.
While it’s critical to develop effective marketing strategies and plan out a robust marketing budget, it’s also important to keep your marketing messages and materials relevant and engaging. For entrepreneurs and marketers seeking to grow their businesses in the Indianapolis area, let’s take a look at the top marketing email topics that you’ll want to consistently incorporate into your strategy.
Holiday Sales, Special Offers, And More
With the holiday season in full swing, brick-and-mortar stores and online retailers are engaged in all-out Christmas battles to make sure that their customers spend as much as possible during the last few weeks of the year. With so much competition, it’s crucial to stay on top of the game and communicate with your customers at every turn.
Whether you’re in the habit of sending out a regular holiday newsletter or you’ve got a sales team that manages all of your marketing activities, including marketing emails, it’s essential to keep your customers up to date on all the latest offers and discounts as the season turns. If you want to appeal to your customers in the richest, most nostalgic tradition, consider using imagery that is as close to real life as possible. That way, your customers will feel like you actually brought the magic of the season to their fingertips.
Along with seasonal sales and discounts, many retailers, brands, and websites will also throw in an extra reward or perk for customers who spend a certain amount of money during a certain time frame. Whether it’s a free toy with purchase of a certain amount of toys, a discount on next order, or even a free t-shirt, it’s always nice to have a little something for your customer to remind them of your brand. Knowing when and how to play off these incentive programs can help you drive more traffic to your store. At the very least, it can’t hurt!
Product Updates, Special Events, And More
If you’ve got an innovative new product that you think will be a success, it’s crucial to test the waters with beta testers, launch partners, and even a small group of customers. This way, you’ll be able to see how people respond to your new product and make any necessary modifications before rolling it out to a larger audience. Many companies, brands, and websites will also use special events (birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, etc.) to release new products and give people the chance to try out new things. For instance, you might want to send out a limited-time offer for a particular product that you think will be popular, or you could use an event such as a grand opening to introduce a new store location, new products, or a revamped online store. Regardless of the reason for the special event, you can bet that your customers will want to take advantage of the opportunity and try out the new products that you’re so excited about.
As we’ve established, marketing emails can be an important part of your overall marketing strategy. That being said, some topics are going to be much more effective than others, depending on your audience and aim. Are you an entrepreneur who wants to attract investors to your project? Perhaps you’re seeking to grow your business and looking for small business owners who want to learn more about selling their products? Perhaps you’re targeting senior citizens and want to encourage them to do business with you due to your reputation for excellent customer service?
Whatever your reasons for wanting to engage with potential customers in Indianapolis, let’s take a look at some tips on how to craft the perfect marketing email to make sure that your efforts are as effective as possible.
Hints From The Experts
While there’s no substitute for doing your own market research and testing new products yourself, occasionally it’s nice to get some insight from people who have been there and done that. That way, you can be sure that you’re not wasting your time and effort on something that isn’t going to work. In these cases, it’s better to ask questions and learn as much as possible from other marketers who might have already been in your shoes. Here are a few tips from experts on how to craft the perfect marketing email for your business.
Firstly, make sure that you’re using a good email tool. If you’re not sure which one to choose, consider sending out a small sample of your email (up to 200 MB) to a few different email marketing services and see which one responds best. Once you’ve established a good rapport with at least one company, you can begin building out your full email marketing campaign and incorporating any lessons that you’ve learned.
Make sure to include a call-to-action. Whether you’re just setting up an account or you’ve already gotten to the point where you’ve established trust with your customers, let them know what you’re offering and why they should care. You should always include an offer some sort of value, even if it’s just a discount or an extra reward for a complete purchase. In an age where consumers can become distrustful of businesses, it’s important to humanize your business, establish credibility, and build trust with your customers. That way, when they receive your email, they’ll know exactly what they’re getting themselves into.
Keep It Short
While you might have a really long pitch ready to go, your email client, whether it’s Microsoft Mail or Apple Mail, doesn’t need to be burdened with a whole novel. Keep your emails short and to the point. If you’ve got a lot of content, consider splitting it up into several emails or even a series of blog posts.
Avoid overusing exclamation points and capital letters. If you feel that your email is going to be ignored or marked as spam, it’ll most certainly be flagged as such by the email service provider. Nobody wants to read a novel in their inbox, especially when there are so many other messages there already. It’ll make your email stand out and get noticed, rather than simply being thrown into a crowded spam folder.
Build Trust
If you want to attract potential customers to your store, products, or website, it’s crucial to establish trust. If you’ve built a good relationship with at least one company, consider using them as a resource for your email marketing. Establishing and maintaining relationships with businesses and brands in the Indianapolis area could prove very profitable for your organization. When a business or brand provides value or a service that you couldn’t otherwise afford or complete with your own team, it’s often considered a win-win situation.
Avoid The Spam Folder
Avoid wasting time and energy sending your emails to the spam folder. Instead, make sure that your email service provider sends them to the proper inbox. If you’ve ever sent an email and it ended up in your spam folder, you know that there’s no guarantee that it’ll get delivered to the inbox. Especially if you send a lot of emails, they’ll start getting flagged as spam and you’ll start getting lower deliverability rates.
To avoid this, only send emails that you’re certain will be delivered to the inbox. Some services, such as MailChimp, provide double opt-in verification, ensuring that you’re not wasting your time and effort sending emails to spam. Along with establishing trust with your customers, getting flaggings as spam can also damage your reputation, so make sure that you avoid this at all costs. Once you’ve gained enough trust with a company, you can begin setting up your full email marketing campaign and begin incorporating lessons that you’ve learned into your strategy.
Email marketing isn’t going anywhere, but it is always expanding, changing, and evolving to fit the needs and trends of today’s digital consumer. The above tips should get you started on the right foot and help you craft the perfect marketing email for your business or organization. If you’ve got any tips or suggestions, or if you’ve ever been stuck on what to write in your own email marketing campaigns, please feel free to leave a comment below!