Email Marketing Tips - Success in 7 Easy Steps

Many of us have grown tired of the daily hassle of deleting unwanted email pitches from unknown marketing sites every day, sometimes many times a day. Yet, email marketing remains an effective tool for promoting your products or services – if used correctly – and not abused.

The seven steps that are critical to success in an email marketing campaign are:

1. Define the target audience for your email campaign

2. Set your email marketing goals

3. Create fresh, engaging content

4. Settle on the frequency of your email campaign

5. Establish a timeline and editorial calendar for your email campaign

6. Choose an email marketing service

7. Track your results and modify your plan accordingly

If you're new to the concept of email marketing, you may have no idea what the listed steps mean. So, let’s define our terms a bit and help you better grasp what each of these 7 Easy Steps for Email Marketing Success means.

• Define the target audience for your email campaign

It goes without saying that regular visitors to your website or blog appreciate the information you have to offer. The key to growth is to increase the size of your audience, and email marketing is a great tool for doing this. Determine exactly who it is that is visiting your site on a regular basis, and work to tailor your message for them.

• Set your email marketing goals

Every email you send to your list should include a call-to-action: whether you are trying to build a larger audience; generate more shares in the social network; have recipients get in touch with you for more information; or make a sale. Whatever you would like your recipients to do, you must ask them to do it.

• Create fresh, engaging content

Stale content in an email; that is, content that has been previously featured on your blog or website, will generally not inspire your audience to take the action you are asking them to take. Timely, compelling content is always preferred when you ask your audience to take action.

• Settle on the frequency of your email campaign

Daily emails are annoying. Even weekly promotional emails can upset your audience. Based on the nature and value of the information you have to offer, as well as how time-critical it may be, once or twice a month is usually more than sufficient for an email marketing campaign.

• Establish a timeline and editorial calendar for your email campaign

Once you’ve determined the frequency of your outgoing emails, you must create a calendar for creating your content and a timeline for sending out your emails. Doing this will help you to remain consistent, which is something your readers will appreciate.

• Choose an email marketing service

Email marketing services such as icontact, Mailchimp, and constant contact have a proven track record of successful support for effective email marketing campaigns, regardless of the niche involved. The services are not free, nor are they cheap, but their value simply cannot be argued.

• Track your results and modify your plan accordingly

The services mentioned above all can provide you with critical information on the success of your email campaign; including who is reading your emails, who is sharing your emails, who is clicking through for more information, and who is buying, among other things. Another critical feature of these services is to help you ensure that your list contains only those who've agreed to receive your emails.

Of course, if you still have questions about this email marketing tip, Ted has more than 25 years of experience helping designers and furnishing dealers market their businesses successfully. Simply… Contact TD Fall today.

Designer Marketing Tips – Interior Designer Marketing Plan

Does this sound something like your current marketing plan or strategy? Not to be overly negative or judgmental here but, the typical interior designer marketing plan looks a bit like this:

• Blog posts – when the mood strikes and when there’s time.
• Facebook & Instagram posts – a few times a month, when there’s time.
• Tweets – a few times a week, when there’s time.
• Emails to the list – every few months, when there’s time.
• Monthly newsletter – every few months, when there’s time.
• Attend industry functions – if the fee is not too high when there’s time.

Of course, the result of such efforts is relatively obvious… New clients show up – if the mood strikes – when they have time!NOTE: While the above may seem harsh at first glance, it must be said this type of “marketing plan” is fairly typical of most small businesses and solopreneurs today.Again, the point here is not to find fault but to let you now that the time you may spend on such efforts is virtually wasted. In fact, you would be far better off focusing on just one or two of these marketing strategies and devoted yourself to them – effectively – than to waste time trying to do all of them – poorly.With this in mind, let’s examine some marketing plan priorities.How to Develop a Marketing PlanOver the next few months, our goal will be to provide you with the basic elements of a how you can develop a marketing plan that will enable you to grow your interior design business. While the elements we present may not lead to “Aha!” moments for you, you can take comfort in the fact that they’ve been proven effective and should not be overly time-consuming.So, where do we begin? With a few marketing plan basics.

• Stay local – For the vast majority of designers, your market is local. This means that putting time, effort, and cash into developing a national reputation is mostly wasted. On the other hand, developing a strong local reputation can lead to expanding markets. So, focus your efforts near to home and, as you build your reputation and your list of satisfied clients begins to grow, the expansion will take care of itself (to a large extent).
• Target audience – Marketing your services to people who do not want them is a waste of time, as is marketing yourself to those you do not want to work for. Far too many entrepreneurs go into business without a clear idea of who may need – and want – and be willing to pay for – their services. Discovering who it is that needs and can afford the work you offer is the first step to developing an effective marketing plan. (More on this step later.)
• Watch other designers online – Check out the content and blog posts from the other designers or companies that you follow and glean tips from their frequency and the focus of their content to bolster your web content and blog posts. (Local competition will tell you where they’re struggling if you learn to read the signs.)
• Check your menu – Are there aspects to design work that you dislike? Are there areas in which you excel, and others in which you struggle? Of course, there are – you're human. Don’t try to be all things to all people. Instead, perform a bit more research and learn which of your competitors excel in the areas you struggle, and which struggle in the areas where you excel. Then, market yourself accordingly and keep your menu of services focused on those areas. (Who knows, you may even be able to come to an agreement with them in which you recommend each other for those projects.)

These tips should get us started, for now. Yes, they’re somewhat obvious yet, without these in the forefront of your mind, it will be nearly impossible to begin working on a coherent interior designer marketing plan. Plus, there will be plenty more ideas where these came from as we move forward in this series of blog posts. So, stay tuned…Looking for more interior design marketing tips? Get in touch with TD Fall today.