Achieve Greater Success with E-mail Marketing

Written by Kerry O'Malley Friday, 22 January 2010 21:22

E-mail ads and e-newsletters are becoming a more reliable source of information to many of your potential industrial customers.  They're the next evolution in "convenience" supplier sourcing and information gathering.  When information is delivered directly to someone's Inbox, how much more convenient can it get?

According to a recent Industrial Economic Outlook Survey, 56% of engineering, technical, manufacturing and industrial professionals subscribe to four or more e-newsletters, and 46% read e-newsletters either daily or several times a week. With a captive audience like that, more industrial companies should take advantage of cost-effective e-mail marketing opportunities.

Of course, to be read, the e-mail ad or newsletter needs to grab the reader's attention instantly.  People are busy; if they don't see something of interest pretty quick, they'll probably hit the delete button. To be most effective, thoughtfully consider each of the four components of any e-mail ad or e-newsletter: headline, copy, links and images.  If you take the time to make each of these components the best they can be, your efforts will be more successful.

Headline: A good headline doesn't just describe.  It should be persuasive, or offer the reader a benefit.  You can have one headline, as in the case of an e-mail ad, or several headlines if you have multiple articles in an e-newsletter.  Effective headlines jump out at readers and entice them to read the entire article.

Here are some examples of strong headlines:

• New Cartridge Valve Reduces Need For Maintenance (makes job easier and reduces maintenance costs)
• Advanced Wear Components Increase MTBF (saves money by keeping equipment operating without interruption)
• Free Tubing Demo (seeing the product before you buy offers assurance)
• New Thermoplastic Material Provides Increased Chemical Resistance (promises important benefit)
• Call Today For Discounted Pricing (persuades reader to take action)

Copy: There are two types of copy: product/application-oriented to promote a specific product and education-oriented to increase awareness about your company or to help position your company as an industry leader.

Follow these tips for both product and educational copy:

• Be brief and benefit-oriented
• Focus on why the reader should accept the offer in your ad, such as downloading a product brochure or asking for a price quote
• Stay away from features and specs; there's time for that later
• Write directly to your audience, using words like "you" and "your"
• Ask questions that address customer problems: "Concerned about excessive down-time due to pump failure?"

Links: Your email should contain links that take the reader to additional information, either on a stand-alone "landing page" or to a page within your website.  Links should give readers direction and let them know what is on the other side of the link.

Here are some examples of action oriented links:

• Download the article
• View the video
• Order a sample
• Visit our website
• Learn more
• Compare products

You can also link specific text within an article to additional information or a peripheral subject on another page.  For example:

In recent tests, the new wear ring material outperformed all other competitive materials.

The text "recent tests" would link to the actual test data on a landing page or your website.

Images: Choosing appropriate images is usually the easiest part of creating e-mail ads and e-newsletters.  Since pictures used on the Web can be much lower in resolution than pictures needed for print media, there are usually more choices available to industrial marketers.

Here are some things to consider:

• Make sure your images are high enough quality at the size they will appear in the e-mail.
• If you're creating an e-mail ad that will be distributed by another party, (such as a trade magazine) be sure the images meet the publisher's specs for file type and size.
• If the image is of a product, why not link it to additional information on the product? It's actually a good idea to link any image to additional information.