In the last post, we talked about the things that you can do to attract email sign-ups. Things like e-books and clear website direction really work well, and it’s always a good idea to show your clients what you can do by demonstrating solid knowledge. But there are also some things that will result in people dropping your email newsletter as quickly as they might have signed up. Take a look!
CC Image courtesy of mattwi1s0n via Flickr1. Not delivering what you promised. Here’s a situation that you don’t want to be in: you promised to send people useful information and guides if they signed up for your email newsletter. But, you were just using that line to get email addresses. Instead of sending those useful details to your clients, you’re just sending sales-y stuff. Yeah, that will chase clients away faster than most other things. Deliver what you have promised – that’s an important note to make.
2. Sending too many emails. Somewhere between the number of emails that a company like Hubspot sends out and no emails at all is a comfortable medium. If you send too many emails, Google (or some other email program) will send your notes directly to the trash (where, let’s face it, they probably belong). Don’t bombard people with emails. Send a newsletter when you have something to say, or on a monthly basis (or weekly) if that’s what you promised.
3. Offering e-books that are full of nothing and more nothing. It’s really simple to hire a writer to slap together an e-book, but capturing emails and providing people with an e-book that’s really a lot of nonsense is a good way to break client trust – once client trust is broken, it’s hard to get it back.
4. Not optimizing for mobile. If your newsletter can’t be read from a phone (which is the way that most people read emails now), you’re breeding a whole lot of frustration.
5. Sending out really useful – but really boring – content. There are a few people that like to read dry content that’s full of simple facts and reads like a scientific journal report. If this is the market that you’re targeting, great. If not, you could simply be boring people to death! Try to make your content interesting, inviting, and fun. Even if you don’t have a fun topic to write about, you can hire a designer to crate infographics or find other ways to spruce things up.
6. Timing is everything. That line pretty much says it all, but how can you find out when you should be sending your emails? The answer here is simple enough: test it. Use a tracking program to see how often your notes are read, when they are read, and what days work the best. You might find that Tuesday at 2pm gets the most reads, while Friday at 4pm gets none – or the other way around. Timing really depends on the industry you’re in, and on the market that you are targeting.
7. Make sure the content is relevant. Every time you (or your content writer) sits down to compose a newsletter, keep your target audience in mind. If the content you’re sending out is no longer relevant, people will stop reading it.
Pre-Show Prep
Email marketing is a huge part of pre-show prep. Take the time to do it right, and heed the advice above to avoid losing the people that you worked so hard to gain. If you do things the right way, you should be able to get potential clients and current clients excited about the upcoming show you’ll be attending with both your email campaign and your custom exhibit. In the meantime, make sure that you have your exhibit design ready to go by contacting Blazer Exhibits today. We create custom exhibit design and booths for any business large or small – call us to see what exhibit design we can create for you – and let us know if you have any questions about email marketing!