I think in our region, we are all fed up of receiving daily unsolicited emails from vendors that we never gave our consent to. Yes, that is correct. For proper email marketing the client needs to opt in to receive any form of communication. Whether a newsletter, or a promotional email conveying the wonderful sales that you can enjoy from the respective retail outlet. So, the question is, does email marketing work?

In our region, where digital marketing is still at its kinda infancy stage these rules are not enforced very strictly. So, we end up receiving many unwanted electronic newsletters and sms’s that we never gave our permission to. More often than not, we probably signed some document, where we gave our consent without realizing the tiny-winy small prints.

Yet, email marketing is still considered among the most cost-effective tools of digital marketing. Especially if undertaken correctly.

Tips on utilizing your email marketing successfully

As a leading digital agency in Nicosia, we would like to share some tips on email marketing to reap the return on your investment:

  1. Choose a professional third party email provider. This is significant because unless a specialized third party email provider, your normal ISP’s will consider any bulk emails as spam. As a result, you may block your communication and hamper your day to daily email correspondence. Using third party specialists has ample benefits including the following. You will:
  • not be considered as spamming
  • have a higher % of newsletters click through
  • have real time reporting

and their platforms are very easy to use.

  1. Create a professional email template. This will not only boost your brand image it may increase your newsletter and / or campaign rate too.
  2. Moreover by setting up your email mechanism up to a certain degree you can:
  • automate your processes
  • you can start data-mining your audiences, which you can segregate according to your audiences so that you can be more efficient.
  1. Finally, you need to put in place an opt-in procedure to start growing your very own database as opposed to leasing a third party list, which by the way, is illegal.

Email marketing success stories and food for thought

Below are 3 success stories on effective use of email marketing and how it helped these businesses, to get you thinking:

  1. Blue Heron Books

The Independent booksellers BLUE HERON BOOKS, faced a challenge when online book retailing starting becoming popular and affected their sales. So, how did they react to this challenge? They started playing with thoughtful email subject lines to boost their newsletter engagement. They got their audiences catchy subject lines and various tactics like this. The result? They increased their engagement and reached a very respectable 40% open rate.

  1. Modern Hound

Modern Hound, attempted to establish a lasting relationship with their audience and tried to entice them to join their adventures. So, they launched professional templates which included beautiful, professional updates featuring photos and a description of all the doggy fun they have each week. Furthermore, each update for each dog and Mad Mimi’s recipient lists is updated. This has helped them keep clients lists organized and more targeted. At the bottom of each update they included their business logo and links to Modern Hound’s social media outlets. This in effect, increased their opportunity to connect with their doggy parents. Their response was phenomenal, increasing their engagement with their offline audience, online as well.

  1. Firefly Creative Writing

Firefly Creative Writing used the Auto-responder feature in a very creative manner. They conducted 2 creative writing workshops using exclusively drip campaigns. One was called ‘Love Letters Aren’t Just For Lovers’ and grew out of a huge love-letter campaign that they ran. Additionally, they hosted a love letter contest, several  love letter writing workshops for free, a love letter reading. In the end, they used the letters they received for the contest, to create the ‘Love Letters Aren’t Just For Lovers’ e-class. The result? People loved it. Given the success of the first year’s campaign, the following year they made a second class called ‘6 Reasons You’re Not Writing Right Now, and 6 ways to begin.’ It includes beautiful graphics, links to audio workshops and downloadable ‘permission slips’.

The success stories above illustrate some of the basics of email marketing. But if you notice they are applied very creatively, significantly reaping the benefits of email marketing. Additionally, they are combining offline with their online efforts successfully and very cost effectively.

If you need any help with your email marketing efforts drop us a line at [email protected] or call us at 22255001.