One of our clients uses email specifically to help leverage their conference and tradeshow participation. They are very well respected in their industry and they participate in and sponsor many trade shows throughout North America. As an exhibitor, they will often receive, free of charge, a list of the people who have registered to attend an upcoming show. Sometimes these lists must be purchased from conference organizers and the going rate at this point is about $400-$500. This is a highly qualified list, of course, but the purchase cost is intended to be limited to two, sometimes a maximum of three, email mailings only. For a two-mailing list, we will send one mailing a few days before the show begins to invite participants to our client’s booth and give them an idea of what they will find there (a draw for an iPad, iWatch, barbecue, etc.). The second mailing we will send out after the show with an invitation to sign up to receive the company’s newsletter. Another option would be to offer the opportunity to download a White Paper, “Tip List” or other Irresistible Free Offer (IFO). Ultimately, we want to migrate them onto our existing database list so that we can continue to communicate with them so that we can, wait for it, start conversations with them that might lead to a sale.

What Are the Advantages of Email Marketing?

One of the advantages of email marketing is that the delivery systems we use to facilitate sending the emails allow us to track how many people received the email, how many people opened it, and how many people took action by clicking on a link that we included in the content. We can thus track our return on investment and determine what types of email content get us the best response. It’s real “trial and error” stuff.

And it all happens without buying a stamp or stuffing a single envelope.

Since most people open their inbox at least once a day, email marketing allows you to deliver your message to a location where your customers are going to be spending time anyway. The trick is to ensure they open the email and see what you’re offering.

Your Email Content Must Be of Value to Your Audience

Email servers have become increasingly sophisticated in their ability to filter out email messages that might be considered “spammy,” and this does limit how many emails are actually getting in front of your target audience. And that’s why the concept of “opting in” has become so relevant: the more people who take action to ask to receive your emails, the more likely you are to get your message in front of them.

My team and I generally use a mail delivery service called “MailChimp” for client email campaigns. There is a free version of the platform available as an introductory service, but as you increase the number of people in your list, you need to move along to the paid service. Fees are scaled according to the size of your database.

MailChimp has more than eight million users who send billions of emails every month, and the company tracks their data so they know what “average” response rates are in a long list of industry sectors. They note that their customers range from one-person startups to Fortune 500 companies, and they share their information so you can see how your company relates to the benchmark set by others in your industry. If you would like to see their statistics from spring 2018, please visit Mailchimp Benchmarks.

Becoming familiar with your own email analytics will help you improve your email marketing efforts for better results.

Would you like to know more about implementing an email marketing program?  Please get in touch!

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