Nurture Your Contacts and Grow Your Contact Database

If your business is struggling to put together an effective e-mail marketing campaign and grow its contact database, you may need to take a look at these tips.

What is an Email Marketing Campaign?

Email Marketing is an efficient way to stay connected with your contacts while also promoting your business. This form of marketing is an easy way to target a specific audience at a low cost.

1. Branding your e-newsletter

Anything produced by your business needs to look professional, you want your recipients to recognise anything you produce at first glance. Have a designer create a branded template and recognisable colour scheme for your e-zine so that the image you deliver of your business will be professional every time.

Digital Training Institute e-zine: 

Media Box e-zine:

2. Timelines and Regularity

This is very important. If you keep to a regular schedule your recipients will soon begin to expect your e-zine and look forward to opening it and reading it.

3. Standard Format

Don’t rush and send out a disorganised e-newsletter, keep to a standard format so that recipients can get to know the format of the newsletter themselves, making it easier for them to find the information they are looking for in future e-zines.

4. Concise & Clear Content

Always make sure the content you are putting into your e-zine is of interest to your recipients. It might be a good idea to have a contents section in your e-zine so that it will be easy for them to scan through the e-zine  for the content they are looking for.

Digital Training Institute:

Media Box:

5. Hyperlinks

Drive more traffic to your blog and website by attaching hyperlinks to content on your blog and website in your e-zine. This not only drives more traffic to your website but it will keep your e–zine organised as you won’t have to fill it up with all of this extra content.

6. Standard Features

Standard features will encourage recipients to read your next e-zine. Examples of this would be, A welcome note from the Managing Director or ‘This Months Special Offers’ or ‘Product of the Month’.

Digital Training Institute Welcome Note:

Media Box Welcome Note:

7. Permission-Based Data Capturing

Targeted direct marketing, giving individuals information about products and services, is a perfectly legitimate activity – provided it respects the individual’s right to privacy. Sending unwanted direct marketing is neither in your interests nor the interests of those receiving it.

Data protection law imposes strict obligations on the use of personal data for direct marketing. Because marketing using electronic means is more intrusive than postal marketing, stricter rules apply to it.

 GENERAL RULE

The basic rule that applies to direct marketing is that you need the consent of the individual to use their personal data for direct marketing purposes. As a minimum, an individual must be given a right to refuse such use of their personal data both at the time the data is collected (an “opt-out”) and, in the case of direct marketing by electronic means, on every subsequent marketing message. The “opt-out” right must be free of charge.

You must also make clear who you are and where you obtained the individual’s personal data (where this is not obvious). (Data Potection Commissioner)

8. Opt-In & Opt-Out

Create a box an your website where people can opt-in to recieve your e-zine by simply entering their e-mail address. It is also important that you give the recepients an option to opt-out of recieving your e-zine. At the bottom of our e-zine here you can see the option to opt-out.

9. Competitions/ Call to Action

Attract an audience to your e-zine by promoting a competition or a product of yours in your e-zine. Let them know why it is that they need to take part in the compeition or why they need this particular product.

10. Measure Effectiveness

It is important that you evaluate the effectiveness of each campaign, things that you need to check are:

1. Delivery Rate
2. Open Rate
3. Click-through Rate