E-mailing is considered a convenient and inexpensive way to attract customers. It is actively used by Internet entrepreneurs and not only. How to make a mailing list by Email, how to increase its effectiveness, what myths are associated with it - read the article.
Major misconceptions
It is generally accepted that mailing is easy and simple. It is enough to have a database of addresses and regularly send letters with offers to buy this or that. However, take a look in your box. How many emails do you go to spam? How much do you delete without even opening it? When was the last time you bought something after receiving an email like this?
Technical knowledge of how to send Bulk Email is clearly not enough to get good results.
Firstly, the address base must be legal, purchased subscribers or received from a partner will not meet your expectations. Ideally, the target audience should be gathered.
Secondly, the letters should contain interesting and useful information. Equally important is the form of presentation of the material. You need to write in such a way that you want to read the letter. Extremely importantheadlines, otherwise no one will open the newsletter.
A plan matters. You should know in advance when and what you will tell your readers about.
From this follows a simple conclusion. You need to learn how to do email marketing the right way. Read books, take part in trainings and, of course, try in practice, look for your own approaches and methods.
How to do email marketing right
The purpose of emails from a company is to sell your product. But there are many ways to get there.
Maxim Ilyakhov, author and editor of one of the most interesting mailing lists on the Internet (from Megaplan), identifies three ways.
- The first way is play. A certain fictional character is created - the hero of the letters. Stories are told on his behalf, he can also share his opinion or impressions about something. The purpose of such letters is, first of all, to entertain the reader, but also to offer a product too. Play and sale should be separated. As an analogy, we can recall an interesting program with commercials.
- The next path is cognitive. It is this strategy that is followed in the Megaplan mailing list. Letters are a kind of business magazine filled with useful information. Articles are written by authors or reprinted from other sources. Thanks to this approach, audience loy alty and an expert image of the company are formed.
- The third option is direct sales. It is considered the most ineffective of all possible. These are the emails that most often end up in spam. Even with suchapproach, only 20% of the information should be selling, and 80% - useful. Otherwise, the method will not work.
How to build a base and not become a spammer?
Choosing a mailing list is a slippery slope. Letters are a real invasion of personal space. People don't like it, so they press the "Spam" button and complain. It is important to ensure that the information is interesting and relevant to readers.
How to make email marketing useful? Don't write about your company or how good your product is. Take on broader topics that will hook your audience. About success, about life around, share working secrets and techniques. Let your emails help people solve problems, even if they haven't bought anything yet.
Effective mailing is directly related to the quality of the base. Accept the fact that a maximum of 20% of the addresses will turn out to be working, and 80% are dump boxes that are not even checked. The base will be better if it includes people who signed up themselves, because they were interested in something. To collect just such addresses, you need to treat the mailing list as a serious project that requires an investment of time and effort.
Regularity
Naturally, you need to contact the audience regularly. If you don't plan on doing this, then don't even start. Most often, letters come once a month or once a week. It is better to send quality material, but less often than poor quality, but often.
It is believed that the most effective regularity is in the range from two letters per week to one letter per two weeks. Frequent appeals are perceived as a manifestation of importunity, and if you remind yourself too rarely, they can completely forget.
Technical points
So, you have decided on the content of letters and regularity, collected a database of addresses. What's next? How do I send out emails?
If the base is small, then it is quite a real task to send letters without involving paid services. How to do your own email marketing? Very simple.
When you've finished your email, fill in the To, Cc, and Bcc fields. Addresses must be separated by commas. There is a limit on the number of recipients. For example, in Mail.ru there cannot be more than thirty of them.
Besides the fact that this method is time consuming, there is another danger in it. Spam filters treat messages with a large number of recipients as unsolicited. To bypass this protection, you need to send messages not in bulk, but send each one separately. With a large database, this is simply impossible to do manually. How to make an email newsletter in such a situation? You will have to resort to the help of special mailing services.
How to send everyone by Email: links to services
The three most popular today are: SmartResponder, Subscribe, UniSender. All three are domestic. Thanks to this, they have a Russian-language interface andRussian-speaking technical support, which is very convenient.
Also, they all provide official documents for services, which is extremely important for legal entities.
UniSender and Smart Responder are democratic. If the database is small and there are few letters, then the opportunity to use the services is provided for free.
In addition to email, through these services you can send SMS. It is also very important that there is access to statistics: how many letters are open, how many are sent to spam, how many people have made transitions to the site, etc.
Another advantage of the services is that they actively educate their users on how to make emailing to strangers effective. You will receive articles, books the very next day after you go through the registration procedure.
Now you not only know how to create an email newsletter, but also have information on how to make it interesting, effective and help promote your business.
