Copyright 2011 Smart VA Ltd All Rights Reserved. No part of this guide may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informational storage or retrieval system without express written, dated and signed permission from the author. DISCLAIMER AND/OR LEGAL NOTICES The information presented herein represents the view of the author as of the date of publication. While every attempt has been made to verify the information provided in this guide, neither the author nor her affiliates or partners assume any responsibility for errors, inaccuracies or omissions. This guide is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is offered with the understanding that the author is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.
Introduction As a business owner, you know that in order to achieve success and profitability, you need to drive interest in your products and services. However, the challenge is first of all to find those people who are interested in your business and then once you ve found them, to keep them engaged. In the past this was done with direct mail and advertising. But these forms of marketing can be expensive and time consuming, especially for small businesses that don t have large marketing budgets. So how can you communicate directly with people who you know are interested in your services? Well, the answer is through email marketing. For instance, you are speaking to a warmer market than those people who you engage with in other forms of online marketing such as social media. This is because the recipients of your newsletters have elected to receive communications from you either by signing up on your website or asking to be added to your mailing list. It also enables you to proactively communicate with existing and potential clients instead of having to wait for them to return to your website or give you a call. You can target the campaign so they only receive information they are interested in and personalise the message with their name. Also, the response rate is far quicker. Rather than waiting weeks to see results, you will get them in hours and can instantly measure what works. However, before you rush into email marketing, there are some essential things you need to know. If you don t set up your campaign properly, you could get accused of sending out spam and become blacklisted by the ISPs (Internet Service Providers)! This guide will help you avoid the common mistakes that many people make when setting up an email marketing campaign, and give you advice on how to promote your business professionally and effectively to your clients, without falling foul of anti spamming rules. Also, look out for the special bonus offer at the end! www.smartva.co.uk 3
Email marketing : The basics The first thing you need to consider when setting up an email marketing campaign is to choose the appropriate program for your needs. Don t try and do this via your existing email program such as Outlook or Gmail as your ISP places limits on how many emails you can send out per month and how many people you can send them to. If you start sending out bulk emails on an infrequent basis to a large group of people then your ISP will think you are sending out spam and will either stop your outgoing emails or even close down your account. Also, there s more of a chance that you will accidentally share your recipients email addresses with everyone on the mailing list by adding them into the To box instead of bcc. By doing this, you could seriously upset your recipients by sharing their email address with a group of strangers. This is why it is essential to use an email marketing service such as Aweber, Constant Contact or MailChimp. When deciding on which program to use, think about your requirements. Are you just sending a newsletter once a month? Or are you planning to offer an online course so need to set up a series of follow up emails (called autoresponders) once people have signed up? Whatever your needs, you need to look at each program s features before making a decision. Remember, cheaper doesn t always mean best. In fact, it is very important that you choose the right email marketing program from the start as moving your mailing list from one provider to another can be extremely difficult and mean that you lose a large percentage of your subscribers. See the blog 5 Things to Consider When Changing Email Marketing Programs for more information. Don t get blacklisted! One of the essential things you need to ensure is that you don t get accused of sending spam. Let s face it, none of us likes getting spam and if we want our business to appear reputable and professional, we don t want to be sending it to our contacts. However, you can easily find yourself falling foul of spam regulations when using email marketing if you don t know what you re doing. www.smartva.co.uk 4
The first rule of email marketing is Don t send to people without their permission! Just because you met someone at a networking event or trade fair, and you swapped business cards, this does NOT mean that they gave you permission to sign them up to your mailing list. You only sign up people who have given their permission and the best way to do this is to have a sign up form on your website and use the double opt in method. How does the double opt in method work? Say someone signs up for your email newsletter on your website they fill in their details and hit the Submit button. Immediately afterwards, they will receive an email with a confirmation link to confirm their subscription. If they click the link, they are added to your list and you have proof that they have opted in. If they don t click the link, then they are not added to your list. Don t physically add contacts yourself because, if you do, you could get reported as a spammer. If this happens too often, then the ISPs will block you and no one will receive your email messages whether they opted in or not. Your email marketing provider may also suspend your account if you have a high unsubscribe rate. Read on for tips on design and layout of your newsletter. www.smartva.co.uk 5
Email marketing : Design and layout Use HTML. One of the great advantages of using an email marketing service is that you can send out HTML emails. Using HTML means that you can design the message with your own colour scheme and branding, format the content into columns, add headers and footers, and insert images and videos. So you can make your newsletter look like your website and this seamless branding means that your recipients will instantly know who the message is from. Don t forget to add a plain text option too for those recipients who can t or won t read images on their email browser. Images and videos. Please note that when uploading images and videos into your HTML newsletter, you will need to host them on a web server first. The email marketing program will then download them whenever the message is opened. However, don t have your content as one big image because if your recipients have images turned off on their browsers, all they will see is a blank message! Also remember to add alt tags to all images that you add to your newsletter. Some email marketing programs will host the images for you and with others, you will have to host them yourself either on your own website or on sites such as Flickr. Simple layout. It s a good idea to keep the layout of your newsletter fairly simple, either a single column design or one with a sidebar. Add a logo or image in the header, preferably the same as the one on your website. Split the content into sections with headings and add a summary at the beginning so that your readers can instantly see whether the newsletter contains anything they want to read. If you are including articles and blogs, then don t put all the text in the newsletter itself, just add a heading and short summary with a link back to the original article. Read on to find out where to get content for your newsletter. www.smartva.co.uk 6
Email marketing : Content What to write about? A lot of people are put off doing email marketing because they don t know what to put in their newsletters. Content is obviously crucial to the success of your email marketing campaign but it doesn t have to be difficult to create something that will interest your readers. Think about your target market and what would be useful and valuable to them. It could be the latest news in your industry or a topic which relates to a problem that you solved for a client (or for yourself) which would be of interest to your readers. Or it may be tips and advice on subjects related to your services, eg help on completing your tax return. If you put on events or webinars then you can offer your readers a time limited discount. Also don t forget to use articles or blogs that you ve written as well as links to other people s content. Style. The style of the content can either be formal or conversational, depending on your business and target market. It s a good idea to personalise your messages by putting the recipient s first name at the beginning of the email, as this helps to build a relationship between you and the reader. Newsletter vs Autoresponders. A campaign or broadcast is a one off email message that you send out whenever you want to contact your list, eg your monthly newsletter. An autoresponder is a message that is automatically sent out at a time set by you. That could be a series of emails that people receive after they have signed up or modules for an online course which they get every few days. Once you have set up the autoresponders, the recipient will get the emails automatically once they have signed up to your list. Call to actions. Although you want to give your contacts useful information, email marketing is like any form of marketing, it needs to be generating leads for your business. So don t be afraid to add promotions or special offers in your newsletter with links that lead to a landing page on your website that has a clear call to action. Read on to find out the best time to send your newsletter. www.smartva.co.uk 7
Email marketing : Frequency and timing Frequency. When first setting up your email marketing campaign, it s easy to be cautious about sending too many emails out to your contacts. You can feel that you are spamming your contacts if you send emails too frequently. However, research has shown that it s better to send out regular messages. If you only send an email once every few months then your contacts will forget about you, which means that they are more likely to unsubscribe when they do hear from you next. By sending frequent messages with valuable content, you will start to build a relationship with your contacts and they will come to look forward to receiving your emails. So send something out at least once a month if not more, and set a schedule and stick to it. Timing. So when is the best time to send out a newsletter? Well that s the multimillion dollar question! The general consensus is early morning between 6 8am to catch people when they re first checking their inbox. Regarding the best day, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday do well, but research has shown that Saturday and Sunday can also have high open and click through rates. Avoid Mondays and Fridays as people will often have a full inbox at the beginning of the week so your email will get lost; and at the end of the week, people are starting to wind down for the weekend. However, timing all depends on your recipients so can differ widely between businesses. Therefore it s important that you test your campaigns to see which time is the best for you. Read on to find out more about testing your campaigns. www.smartva.co.uk 8
Email marketing : Testing Test different email browsers. Before sending out your email, you need to test it first. This needs to be done to ensure that the email displays properly in various email programs such as Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail etc. It s essential that you do this as not all browsers display HTML emails in the same way. However, with the rise in the use of Smartphones, the majority of people are now viewing their emails via their phone. So don t forget to ensure that your email can be viewed properly on a mobile phone too. Some email programs will test your newsletters for you, but it s a good idea to sign up to a few different email browsers yourself. Split test campaigns. The great advantage of email marketing is the ability to split test your campaigns. Split testing means that you can send out the same campaign to your list, but change the subject header or timing to see which one provides better open rates and click throughs. Sometimes the difference can be around 10% so it s definitely worthwhile doing this. Most email marketing programs will set up a split test for you. Always track and analyse each campaign you send out for open rates, click throughs, unbounces and unsubscribes. You can then see how your campaigns are performing over time and make adjustments accordingly. Because what works for one person s campaign may not be the same for you. Read on to get your 10 top tips on how to ensure your email marketing looks professional. Click on the link for more tips from our blog on how to use email marketing www.smartva.co.uk 9
Top 10 Tips for Effective Email Marketing 1. Put your name in the From box so that recipients of your email can instantly recognise who is sending the message. If a recipient is struggling to remember who you are, then they ll hit the delete button instead of opening it. 2. Ensure the To: field of your email is personalized with your recipient s name, not their email address. Again, this ensures that the email doesn t end up in their delete or junk folder. 3. The subject line should contain your company or newsletter name. If you re sending out a regular newsletter or update, use the same subject line every time, eg My Company Newsletter March 20xx. By doing this, recipients will instantly recognise it s from you and what it s about. 4. Place a one click unsubscribe link at the bottom of your message so that people who no longer want to receive your emails can opt out easily from your list. We don t want to lose subscribers but we also don t want to be sending out messages to people who are no longer interested in what we have to say. 5. Add an optional link at the top of the email for recipients to view this email in your browser. This enables recipients to view the archived version of your email on your server, which is especially useful if the email has been forwarded to them from someone else and is no longer displaying properly. 6. Do a plain text version of your email so that people who can t or won t view images can still read the email text. This also helps prevent your email being treated as spam. 7. Add a link to your company s privacy policy in your email. Most email providers will generate a privacy policy for you when you sign up to their program. Otherwise, you can use the same privacy policy as the one on your website. 8. Put your full contact information on the email, including your mailing address (not PO boxes), telephone and fax numbers. Add as much contact information as possible as this will make your email look like it s come from a reputable company. 9. Have a balance of text and images. Don t put all your images and text into one HTML image as many email programs don t display images by default so all your recipients will see is an empty box when they open up the email. 10. Put a reminder at the top of the email telling people why they are getting a message from you. It could be something like You are receiving this email because you signed up on our website. Let s face it, many of us sign up to lists on websites and then forget about it. You don t want recipients to hit the spam or delete button so adding reminder text prevents this from happening. www.smartva.co.uk 10
Conclusion By using the advice given in this guide, you will avoid the common pitfalls that people face when setting up their email marketing campaigns. So to recap, do some research on the various email marketing providers to find the one that offers the best features for what you want. Ensure that you only have people on your list that have elected to receive communications from you. You will grow your list more slowly this way, but it will be more effective because you know that the people on your list want to hear from you. Keep your newsletter design simple and clear, and don t put too much text in the content split it up with headings and add a summary at the beginning so people can quickly see if they want to read it. Think about what kind of content would interest your target market, and add call to actions to generate leads. Ensure that you are sending an email to your list at least once a month. Then split test campaigns to find out the best time and day for open rates and click throughs. As you can see, email marketing is a great tool if done correctly. You can use it to communicate regularly with a list of people who you know are interested in what you have to offer. By doing this, you can share your expertise with a wider audience, build a relationship with your contacts and start to generate leads for your business. Bonus offer! So now that you ve got a clearer idea about how to use email marketing to promote your business, why not take our free email marketing health check to find out whether your existing campaigns are delivering the results you want. You will get a report which contains 3 key actions that you can take straightaway that will improve the effectiveness of your campaigns. So visit our website for more information and to access the online questionnaire: http://www.smartva.co.uk/email marketing review/ www.smartva.co.uk 11
About the author We can help you if: Valerie Eaton is the founder of Smart VA which specialises in providing online admin and marketing support to people whose businesses are growing and they are now feeling overwhelmed by their workload. Valerie has over 20 years experience working as a PA at senior level so has the knowledge and expertise to provide first class support to clients. You own your own business and have been running it for more than 18 months Your workload is growing and you can no longer handle everything yourself You re now ready to start outsourcing your workload so you can focus more of your time working on your business not in it You want to raise your online presence using tools such as email marketing, blogging and social media but don t have the time or skills to handle them yourself If this sounds like you then we can help. Our cost effective and flexible support enables clients to reduce their workload so they have more time for their business. We also specialise in handling the administration of clients online marketing activities so that they can have an effective online profile which will increase their visibility and attract more clients. So if you would like to know more about how we can save you time and money in your business, then call us to day on 0845 0181016 or check out our website www.smartva.co.uk for more information. Connect with us online by clicking on the images below: www.smartva.co.uk 12