E-mail is a highly effective marketing tool and educators are particularly receptive to receiving e-mail communication. Here are just a few good ways to use e-mail marketing.
- To announce a new product, product enhancement, or special offer.
- In conjunction with a direct mail campaign – particularly a catalog. Use e-mail to let people know the catalog is on its way and offer a special “e-mail only” discount on catalog items
- To invite people to a conference, tradeshow, seminar or event.
- To offer free supplemental materials, user’s guides or lesson plans.
- To reinforce your brand and remain visible with customers in between sales calls and direct mail campaigns.
According to a recent Direct Marketing Association survey, the average overall response rate for e-mail campaigns continues to be high, ranging from 2% to 14%. QED customers have experienced similar rates with some companies seeing extraordinary response rates as high as 21%! With the right message, right list and right delivery strategy you too can see that kind of response. Below are some best practices to help you get started
1. Success Starts with the Subject Line
Keep your subject lines short and to the point. Leave out words that will target Spam filters such as “Free”, “Limited-time Offer”, “Save” and “Invite”. Also, never use all capital letters in your subject line. That’s a sure fire sign for Spam filters.
Also, watch out for keywords in your message’s body copy that will trigger Spam filters, such as “Act Now”, “Free”, and even “Click here”. QED offers advice on avoiding Spam filters and will even run your message through filter technology to ensure your message gets delivered.
2. Offer Something Valuable
Free lesson plans or other teaching resources. Articles that relate to that educator’s area of emphasis. Information on testing, standards or new approaches to a special subject area. These are valuable to educators and help you establish a relationship with them via e-mail.
The highest response rates come from those messages with a call to action, whether that be a discount on a product, free resources to download or request, or a survey to answer. Engage the recipient and you’ll see greater response.
3. Keep it Short
Don’t e-mail your entire product catalog. Keep your message personal, short and direct. Tell the recipient why you’re e-mailing, why it’s important to them and why they should respond in 500 words or less. Offer links to your web site for additional information and make your offer clear. With QED’s E-mail Marketing Services you can easily personalize the salutation or other areas within the message. “Dear Jane” is much nicer to read than “Dear Customer”.
4. Keep it Clean
HTML offers a lot of design options for e-mail messages but a clean, simple design will pull best. Make your design attractive but clutter-free. Stick with sans-serif fonts such as Arial and Verdana. Use a white or very light colored background with dark text. Use bold text to call attention to offers or URLs but be careful how much you use it or you’ll lose its impact. Use lots of small paragraphs and white space.
When using photos or graphics make sure they’re hosted on a server rather than embedded in your message. Slow download times or messages that eat up a recipients’ memory will not improve your response rates. QED’s E-mail Marketing Service detects whether or not recipients can accept HTML messages and if not, automatically deploys a text version of your message.
5. Offer Clear Opt-Out Options
Educators are no different than other online constituencies. They want control over their e-mail boxes and will resent your company if they cannot quickly and easily opt-out of information they do not wish to receive. Just because an educator does not want to receive e-mail does not mean they don’t want to be your customer. But, if you make it hard to opt-out they may develop less than friendly feelings towards your product.
6. Offer a Referral Option
Make it easy for your recipients to forward your message to a colleague. Just like with pass-along readership for print publications, making it easy to share information increases the reach of your message.
7. Make it Easy to Respond
Provide click-throughs to response forms on your web site, easy-to find e-mail addresses and telephone numbers. Make sure all contact points are noticeable and working. Be sure you check and respond to all of your reply-to mechanisms frequently after sending your message so that respondents don’t have to wait long to get the information they’re after
8. Evaluate the Day and Time You Send Your Messages
Traditionally, mid-week e-mails perform better but high response rates have been known to occur on Mondays and Fridays. The best way to know what your target audience responds well to is to test. Test various days of the week and times of day and see what pulls the best.
9. Use E-mail to Build Marketing Synergy
As you mail your new catalog, launch a major new ad campaign, or ramp up a new product roll out, use e-mail to inform your customers and prospects about the news. This will help strengthen your message as educators encounter it across many mediums.
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