Email marketing is a marketing method that uses emails to promote to customers. To some, this can sound a bit difficult, but it really isn’t. Using email marketing to reach your customer base isn’t as hard as you might think, especially if you pay close attention to the tips in the following article.

Minimize traditional email marketing activities during the holidays. Customers are preoccupied with family and friends, and are less likely to be paying attention to business email. Your odds of ending up in the spam box are considerably higher, which could have longer term implications for your bottom line. The major exception to this would be a business directly related to the holiday activities. Otherwise, give yourself a break and enjoy some downtime yourself. Business will be back on track in a day or two.

Insert a link to your subscription form into your marketing newsletters. That way, if your customers forward marketing emails to their friends, their friends can easily subscribe to your list too. Using this strategy makes it easy for you to build a large list of potential customers who have agreed to receive your marketing emails.

If you want your email marketing messages to be successful, make sure you have permission to send them. If you do not have permission from your recipients, the potential consequences can range from being added to spam filters all the way up to getting blacklisted by Internet service providers themselves.

Be persistent with your email marketing messages. It can take as many as twenty emails to one prospect before you routinely have their attention. Try telling a good story through your messages. Hook them with a few messages and let it unfold over a series. Running contests that span several weeks are good way to do this.

Treat each reader like a relationship. Ask in the first email for permission to send more. In the second email, tell them what discounts, products and services they can expect in future emails. In the third email and after, follow through with the content you promised to provide them with.

When you are having your customers provide their email address to you during the sign-up process. Make sure that you have the clear disclaimer visible that you will be undertaking email marketing campaigns. Try to give the consumer an indication of how often you intend to make use of their addresses so that they are not unaware.

Test the format of your email. Be sure to always include any important information near the top of the emails. Try to use different formats to find out which ones will work and which ones won’t. When you find one that works, stick to it. When you do this all of your customers know where they need to look for when searching for information they are interested in reading.

Maximize the results of your email marketing by encouraging your readers to respond to every email. Always read and reply to these emails immediately. Building a personal relationship with each of your readers is the best way to convert them into loyal customers. This is also a good way to get more specific feedback on the success of your efforts.

Your email marketing campaign will be more effective if you make it easy for customers to unsubscribe. This may seem paradoxical, but people will tend to trust you more if you make them feel as if they are in control. Post the unsubscribe link in an obvious place so they can find it easily.

To use email marketing to build confidence in your company and products, avoid turning your emails into gimmicks. Don’t tarnish the professionalism of your image by using irritating tactics like writing all in caps or incorporating symbols like dollar signs. Most importantly, never talk down to your customers or make grossly exaggerated promises about your products.

Find out who your competitors are and sign up to their emails. You will be able to see what content, they are sending to their subscribers and figure out what aspects to use and which to stay away from. Just be sure not to steal their content, as this could constitute plagiarism.

Take every opportunity that comes up to be festive when you send out your emails. When there is a holiday try to tailor your emails to fit the occasion. Subscribers will be very appreciative of this, and they will feel as if you are human and not a robot. Offering holiday discounts is another great idea that ties into the festive theme.

Hopefully now that you have read this article, you are a little less intimidated by email marketing. The widely used marketing practice is fairly simple to implement and can be adapted in no time at all. Simply remember all of the tips that you read here and you will be on your way to using emails for marketing.

Professional Email Marketing Advice That’s Proven To Work was originally published on Spring