Top 10 tips to help develop a winning email marketing strategy

Andy Chapman recently led a Brighton Chamber of Commerce bite-size learning session on email marketing. Here, he shares his top tips.

I have worked for nearly all of my career in digital marketing and I have seen some great campaigns and some terrible ones.

It's vital to have a plan, know what your audience wants and to be creative!

With the rise of social media, email marketing can easily be forgotten. it is, however, still widely considered to be the cheapest, most measurable, and lucrative form of contact to your customer base.

Choose an email service provider that suits you. Some are cheap; some can be very expensive. Consider your goals and set your budget with your estimated return on invesment (ROI) in mind.

Have a sign-up form in the top-right corner of your web page. Add it to any further content you publish - for example, your blog and your Facebook page.

Have a plan, work out what your customer wants and when. Create a timeline of events and prepare to be agile.

It is important to tailor your message and imagery to your customer demographic. Try to segment your customers and send them a clear and relevant message.

Each campaign should have a goal. How many products do you want to sell, how much web traffic do you want to create?

Perform an audit. Sign up to your competitors' newsletters, monitor their design and send-frequency. Pick a competitor you wish to emulate; take the good and discard the bad.

Think quality not quantity. Don't email for the sake of it; it is the easiest way to annoy and disengage your customer base.

Be creative. Use imagery to make your message engaging. Remember that it's only the top half of the screen that your customers see before they decide to 'read or delete'

Your subject line can make or break a message before it has been opened. Consider its length; most email inboxes will crop a subject line at 52 characters.

Test, test, test, and test again. Use the data within your email service provider and compare that to your industry average.

For more information about upcoming Brighton Chamber of Commerce events, visit www.businessinbrighton.org.uk/events