Email Marketing is powerful tool for promoting and selling training courses, however, there are many ways to get it wrong and if you do, the consequences are severe.
Here are 10 top tips to ensuring you only send out fantastic and valuable email marketing campaigns that get results:
1) Subject Line
There are three main things that people look for when deciding whether to open an email not. They are 1) Name of sender - do I know and trust them? 2) Value - Have I received something of value from them recently? 3)The subject line - Is the subject line interesting? It should be short, no more then 75 characters and either ask a relevant question eg How do you get your emails opened? Or explain what will be in the email eg Latest updates on effective email marketing and new email products.
2) Data
Data is key to email marketing. Just because you can easily get an email address doesn't mean you should send them an email campaign. Keep your data updated and continually add to your email list. Then ensure you segment your data so that email campaigns are relevant. Don't send new customer offers to clients and don't send London deals to other parts of the country.
3) Unsubscribes
It may sound counter-intuitive but make sure it's easy for your subscribers to unsubscribe. On most email accounts there's a mark as spam button and if someone can't easily unsubscribe they will normally click that. If that gets clicked enough times your emails start getting blocked.
4) Relevancy
Ensure that the content of the email is always relevant to the people you're sending it to. This is one of the most effective ways to drive business through email and without it one of the easiest ways to lose subscribers.
5) Design
Although it's easy to copy and paste an image or create a basic email template it doesn't mean you should - even a simple white newsletter style email with your logo and small banner at the top can look professional. If you can't be bothered to make it look good, why would people bother to read it?
6) Content
An email is not an excuse to write an essay on how great your company and products are. It's a quick way to excite and interest your clients and potential clients with information that is relevant to them. Definitely sell in your email, just make sure it's interesting and well written and that you also add value through news stories, tips or blogs.
7) Links
There's nothing worse then reading something interesting about a product or service then having to hunt around to find how to get more information. Add links to further information on each section and to each course or service you're talking about. Also, add links to the banner and all images, they often get clicked the most.
8) Call to action
Expect little from people online. You have to tell people what to do and make it explicit. Saying, 'This product is great, you can read all about it' and then making that a link won't get people to take action. Add... 'Read more here' or 'click here' or "Book Now' and people will!
9) Legal
Respect the law. On your emails ensure there is a one click unsubscribe, only email to people who have opted in (B2C) or are currently in a business communication with you (B2B), make sure you add your company name, address and registered number and office as well as a phone and email address and DON'T SPAM!
10) Social
You should have a full social strategy as part of your training marketing strategy and there's no better way to drive people to Twitter and Facebook then telling them about how fun and useful it is on your email newsletter. Then add visual links going to your sites.
ABOUT COURSE MANAGER
Course Manager is a powerful, web-based Course Booking Software designed for any training-based business.
Quick to set up and easy to use, Course Manager will save you time and money by streamlining the labour intensive processes of selling, administering and managing training courses and events.
Course Manager contains a fully integrated email marketing and mailing list generation tool. To find our more please contact us