Before Social Networking, email newsletters were the main way of connecting with prospects and clients regularly. If you believe everything you read online these days, you’d think that Facebook, Twitter, Google+, FourSquare and LinkedIn have left email newsletters in the virtual dust.
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Not so.
Email marketing still achieves huge results–and pairing an effective email newsletter with a social media campaign can attract and keep many more clients for your business than relying on social media alone.
The Purpose of an Email Newsletter
Email newsletters perform one major function: building on your relationship with them. However the difference between really successful newsletters and ones that don’t achieve much in the way of results (and have a high optout rate) is the quality of the content. Design and compliance also play an important role.
It’s critical that your newsletter is interesting – not just a spammy email with lots of “Buy Now” messages. Include helpful tips and news, comment on new trends and industry news, show some of your client makeovers or answer common questions. Of course you are in business to make money, of you should definitely include some type of promotional offer to entice people into your salon. And there’s some clever ways to do this.
DIY Email Newsletters Are a Bad Idea
You can try to put together your own email newsletters with CMS (content management system) plug-ins or within customer-management packages that come with Salon Management Software. The problem with doing it yourself, however, is that you are not an email newsletter specialist and you might not be trained in the arts of journalism, copywriting and html coding. It’s important to have the right headings, structure, layout, image formats and calls to action. Some words set off spam filters. Other specific words and links must be included to comply with the Privacy and Spam Acts.
There are several important processes that are followed to ensure your newsletters are delivered and look good. If you don’t get these right, spam filters can render your email marketing efforts useless. Worse still – if you’re sending them out from your office email system (outlook, gmail etc) your service provider or hosting provider may block the sending all together – thinking it’s spam. Once you’re on their blacklist – it’s night impossible to get off it.
What to Do Now
Marketing to your clients by email newsletter can be a hugely effective strategy and bring you more bookings, more product sales and more referrals than you’ve ever achieved before – if done correctly. Don’t risk your corporate brand, your image with your clients or your email and hosting status with your providers. Get your newsletters professionally written and distributed. It’s well worth it.
