If you don’t already know it, email marketing is an extremely effective and budget friendly solution to producing leads for your business. Whether you choose to email weekly specials or a monthly newsletter, here are some tips to help you along the way.

1. Know the laws! There are laws regulating email. Just what falls under this law? According to the Can-Spam Act, it is defined as follows: “any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service”. Each separate email in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties of up to $16,000, so non-compliance can be costly. Information about these laws can be found at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/ecommerce/bus61.shtm.

2. Personalize your message. There are numerous ways to do this. One of the most effective is targeting your message to users who are specifically interested in the message based on past purchases or current products or services you are selling them. In other words, if a pet store knows you just bought a puppy, sending you emails about goldfish is not going to grab your attention. During an Internet Retailer Conference, we learned one of Petco’s most effective emails, is one that provides pet owners a discount near their pet’s birthday. In order to effectively target your audience, you must collect and maintain the data necessary to do so. Web Strategies can provide you the tools to help you successfully target your audience. We can even provide you some creative tips along the way.

3. Brand it! Every message you send out should be branded. Be consistent with your company’s logo, tag line and colors. You always want your recipients to know, beyond a doubt, the message is from you. Web Strategies understands branding, we’d love to review your recent emails and provide you some branding tips.

4. Call to action. Whenever you send an email message, always have a clear call to action. This may be clicking a link, calling a number, requesting more information, etc. You want your audience to respond to your message. The best way to do this is a call to action. Web Strategies can assist you in creating a powerful call to action.

5. Measure your results! What good is sending out email after email if you don’t measure your results? Figure out what is working and what is not working. Do some A-B testing. If one subject line results in a 10% click through rate, yet another only results in a 1% rate, why would you continue sending out the second one? Web Strategies can send your next email campaign on your behalf and provide you with a link to view the statistics. We can then help you evaluate the results and begin strategizing your next campaign.

Web Strategies can help you with your email marketing from the first step to the last. Whether you need help starting your list, cleaning your list, managing your unsubscribes, creating the mail to sending the email, we can guide you. Email us today for more information.