Using electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial messages (otherwise known as email marketing) has been proven to be one of the most cost-effective online marketing tactics around, second only to search engine marketing. It can reach existing and potential customers a lot faster (just seconds or minutes) and at much lower costs than traditional forms of advertising. It also offers the greatest possible control over campaign variables and measurement.
For email marketing to be effective, both the email creatives and its corresponding landing page must be both properly conceptualized and well designed. The email must entice the reader first to open it and then motivate them to click through to the landing page. Remember that email creatives are just “teasers” while the landing page is the “feature presentation”. If you were able to catch the attention of your customers through your email creatives, you must sustain this interest in the landing page where the call to action is presented. If either one of these did not meet its particular goal, the whole marketing scheme is a failure.
When designing email creatives, the following tips can serve as a guideline:
- Customers can have varying preferences. Provide the option to choose between the HTML or text version of your email.
- Logos are ideally placed on the upper left corner of the page for maximum exposure and recall.
- The top two to four inches of your email is the prime reading space. Take this into consideration when designing your creatives to increase message exposure through preview boxes.
- Keep messages short and direct to the point. Long messages that need to be scrolled down can be annoying to readers.
- Avoid using different fonts and colors. Keep your designs easy on the eyes.
- The call to action must be prominent and clear. Complicated procedures can turn off customers.
- Never use one huge image with just a “click here” button on it. Customers might think it contains viruses and rather hit the delete or spam button instead of even looking at your landing page. Always include some text clearly stating what’s in store for the customer.
- It is also advisable to keep images and links below a file size of 55k as larger files can be filtered out as spam.
- Flash presentation can be a stunning feature but it can also be removed by anti-virus programs trying to protect email programs getting infected. So don’t bother including one in your email.
- Use technology which is compatible with the latest and most popular email software and webmail platforms such as BlackBerry's and iPhones.
- Monitor and track the success of your emails (how many people click on which links within the email etc.). Based on the results, make the necessary changes to improve the effectiveness of your email creatives.
An effective landing page converts click through’s into leads and sales. When designing a landing page, the following tips can be a great help.
- Make sure that content on your landing page is relevant to your email campaign.
- It is a good idea to mirror the landing page headline to your email campaign so that customers can quickly see their connection and relevance to each other.
- Place the most important information where it is most likely to be read (at the top and/or to the left of the page).
- Make sure your copy is easily scannable.
- Present your call to action in a clear and easy to understand manner so that your customer knows what to do next and are directed to the end goal.
If your are interested to know more about and take advantage of the potential of email marketing, there are many companies like PeopleTalk Contact Solutions Inc. which can provide help in creating an email marketing campaign that works. Visit PeopleTalk's website for more information.
Ron Reyes works as a writer for PeopleTalk Contact Solutions Inc., a Philippine-based BPO offering call center outsourcing services: seat leasing, web design & development, and SEO/internet marketing. Visit our website at www.peopletalk.com.ph Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-marketing-articles/email-marketing-that-works-1635688.html
