Email Marketing 101: Boosting Your Reply Rates

Permission-based email marketing is the cornerstone of marketing for most businesses today. The reason why so many people send out permission email campaigns is the return on investment. According to recent studies, email marketing does better reaching out to people and generating sales than buying ads on television radio.

The main goal of many email marketers is to not only have customers open emails, but boost how many reply with sales of goods and services. Generally speaking, the more customers reply to your emails, the more you’ll see an increase in your sales and services. So how do you boost your reply rates? Simply follow the steps below:

1) Your first step is to separate the interested customers from the not-so- interested ones. How do you do this?

Give customers an opportunity to sign up for your email or newsletter on your Website. The customers that have no plans to buy anything from you or are not interested in your business in general will not sign up. Gathering this permission, via a Website sign-up box, is called using opt-in, and opt-in is the very best way to build a solid, permission-based list.

2) Your seconds step? Follow up on your promises.

Suppose you tell your customers when they sign up that they’ll only receive emails from you once a month, promoting a good or service. Although you may be tempted to send more than you promised to send, don’t do it. If you break your promise and send different types of emails than you said you would, or you sent out more often than you promised, your email recipients will mark your emails as spam, which will ruin your entire email marketing reputation.

3) Your third step is to get your email recipients more involved in the process.

Ask for feedback on what they think of your service or which products they can’t live without. Send an email survey asking customers how you can improve your business. Once you’ve gathered a lot of responses, announce to customers on your Website or via email that you’ve listened to what they have to say and are making the appropriate changes. Nothing makes a customer happier than knowing that their needs are being met and their voices are being heard.

4) Your fourth step is to mix up your content and make It interesting.

Start by telling customers when they sign up that they’ll receive a variety of emails from you, from helpful tips to top-secret promotions. Feature different types of information in your emails, including favorite customer products or demonstrations on how certain products work. If you keep your content interesting, you can build a real following of customers that look forward to opening your email marketing campaigns every time you send them.

If you do your homework and craft interesting, permission-based campaigns that cater to your customer needs, you’ll get better sales, more open and click-through rates, and build better relationships with your customers. Since you’ll be sending emails for pennies on the dollar, the effort is well worth the investment.