There’s a plethora of marketing talk out there that one is required to make sense of when trying to learn how to write a successful email to your clients. Gibberish like this “…email produces a ROI for 70% of B2C only marketers”. Say what? Are they talking about a robot from Star Wars? So, I’ve done some translating for you, and put it in plain ol’ English to teach you how to write an email—one that gets noticed, one that clients want to read, and let’s just cut to the chase, one that makes you money.
When it comes to email marketing this is what you’re going for—clients to open your emails, and then click something once they’re in there. It’s as simple as that right? So, how many clients should we expect to do this? According to Mail Chimps extensive real data-based results, the Beauty & Personal Care industry (that’s you guys) should expect to have a 19% open rate, and a 2% click rate. What this means is that 19% of your client recipients will open the email, and then 2% of those people will actually click something in the email (like a “Book Online” link). Doesn’t seem like much does it? However, it is. This 2% makes a big difference to your bottom line—2% of 1,000 clients is 20. To potentially have an extra 20 clients come in one month is a big deal. Therefore, let’s make it count.
Subject lines—when it comes to subject lines, boring works best. If you’re anything like me you’d go for a really creative, clever subject line to grab your audiences attention, but statistics show that this tactic doesn’t work very well, boring is actually better. By boring I mean something like “[Company Name] Newsletter – February 2016“, oppose to something witty like “A Cut Above The Rest!“. Your subject line should be just that, a line that simply describes the subject of your email. The reason for this is that boring is considered to be a soft sell, it’s not an obvious attempt to get your clients to buy something. A hard sell, which is often how a creative, clever, super witty subject line comes across as, has the tendency to deter clients, they see right through it.
Call to action—if 2% of your clients are expected to click something in your email, what is that something? Make that click count. The click should be a call to action, a click that brings you results. A “Book Online“ button in the body of your email means that the client doesn’t even need to go to your site, it’s one simple click and they find themselves on your Online Booking login page. If they’re a new client they click Sign Up, if they’re an existing client they click Sign In.
Get past spam filters—spam filters are like overexcited security guards. They stand in the way of your client’s inbox scanning your emails for “spammy” looking words, phrases and characters. Mr Spam Filter gives you a point for every spammy thing he finds in your email, and these are not the kind of points you want. Once you get a few points, off to the spam folder your email goes. To give your emails the best chance of not ending up in your clients spam folder, or lost in cyberspace, you need to take note of the following. Avoid using spammy words and phrases like money back guaranteed, low prices, or 10% off. Stay clear of using ALL CAPS, like BUY NOW, CLICK HERE! or FREE! Just looking at those shouting words puts me on edge. And another, enough of the double and triple exclamation points!!! In my personal opinion, I’d say drop the exclamation points altogether, they’re rarely required and they add a sense of unnecessary urgency.
Minimise Abuse Complaints—you might not know what these are, or that they exist, but this is important to understand. Abuse complaints occur when your client hits the ‘This is spam’ link in response to your email. You don’t want them doing this, because it’s like getting a strike against your name. If you get too many strikes, your business will stop being allowed to send marketing emails. This often happens when the recipient forgets who you are. To avoid this from happening ensure that your “From” and “Subject” lines contain your company name (remember our boring subject line, it had the company name in it), you want your subscribers to recognise you right away. In your industry you are constantly gaining new clients, so make sure that you are in the habit of asking your clients for permission to send them promotional emails. Simple Salon has tick boxes in each client profile allowing you to enable/disable clients for Email Promotions. That way your client list is always accurately reflecting those who want to receive email promotions from you, which in turn means less potential for a three strikes and your out kind of situation. A final point is to ensure that your marketing email looks professional and that the content is relevant. Put some effort into it—go for excellence.
So, if your email doesn’t contain anything spammy, then it has a greater chance of making it into your clients inbox. Once there, due to the boring subject line, your client is more likely to open the email, and since it looks completely pro, they start reading. The relevant nature of the content has them clicking the “Book Online” link in the body of the email. You’ve got them hook, line and sinker now. Cha-ching, they make their appointment.
An email that delivers results (and that right there folks is your ROI for your B2C email marketing—your Return On Investment for your Business To Consumer email marketing).
Do all this with Simple Salon, click here to get started.