They've Got Mail: How to Grow Your Business Through Good, Old-Fashioned Email

Here’s a statistic you can take to the bank: Since 2000, the percentage of Americans using the Internet has more than doubled, from 43 to 87 percent.  
                   
The implications of that number should stand on its own if you’re an e-tailer. Your commercial presence unfolds on a computer instead of in a storefront shop, making traffic usage numbers impressive.

And while you constantly fine-tune your site and your operations, hoping to attract new customers and retain existing ones, there’s a marketing strategy you need to be using: e-mail. It’s hardly a new feature of cyberspace; in fact, many Americans were introduced to the World Wide Web after using their computer Internet connection to send and receive communications. That makes it all the more important.

So here is the big question: How can you compete in a sea of messages current and prospective customers will open? We have some ideas.

The first concept you’ll need to embrace is the move to mobile. Usage of email is rapidly shifting to smartphones and tablets: studies suggest that more than half of all emails were accessed on a mobile device worldwide in 2016.
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Designing your email communications for the mobile set requires a few tweaks, the most important of which has to do with layout. Remember screen size on an iPhone or an Android, and other phones, is sharply reduced over the size of a laptop display. You’ll need to optimize your interface using an app or platform that is geared toward tailored content for mobile devices.

Here are other considerations that will make your email marketing strategies pay off:

Subject lines
Think of how you respond to annoying or confusing subject lines in emails. Are you moved to open them? Probably not. Keep your customers in mind when you craft your own subject lines, taking care to observe a character limit of 30 or less, and most important, to write them well.

Content
Of course this is a basic, but don’t give it short shrift. If you’ve successfully hooked an email recipient into opening your message, make the message count. Use compelling and concise language to remind them why your offerings deserve attention today.

Visualization
New generation emails should take advantage of video capabilities. With the understanding that some customers’ devices or connections won’t accommodate hi-resolution or long clips, do remember that animation is customization, and it can draw in an audience beyond anything you’d imagine. Simply inserting a short .gif related to your business can be enticing.

The takeaway here is to convert the highly personalized nature of email to extend your marketing efforts. Contacting existing (and new) customers with offers you know they have already expressed interest in—either because they’ve bought it already, or have searched it online—puts you several steps ahead of the game. If you use this tactic, and not abuse it with an annoying volume of outreach, you may find an entirely new class of clientele.