Many of you may be actively working your social media networks – Facebook and Twitter in particular - in order to engage with your spa or massage practice clients and prospects. Social media has the advantages of immediacy, since you can post something and get feedback within in minutes from followers. But social media alone and certainly not without a well-thought out strategy may not achieve the goals you’ve set to boost your brand, build trust and establish your advantages over the competition.
That brings me to email marketing. Despite some predictions that email marketing is on its way out the door, it still continues to be quite alive and well and very effective at driving business, building brand loyalty, strengthening relationships and increasing traffic to your website. Just look at some the email marketing statistics compiled by Outbound Engine, a marketing automation company.
- Email marketing yields an average 4,300% return on investment for businesses in the United States (Direct Marketing Association).
- For every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return on investment is $44.25. (Exact Target)
- Email conversion rates are three times higher than social media, with a 17% higher value in the conversion. (McKinsey & Company)
- 95% of those who opt into email messages from brands find these messages somewhat or very useful. (Salesforce)
Conduct a Strong Email Marketing Campaign
If you haven’t conducted an email marketing campaign or haven’t achieved the results you wanted, here are some tips to ensure success:
- Build a permissions-based List
- Be Consistent across Channels
- Reinforce your Brand
- Keep it Short
- Be Personal
- Have a Call to Action
- Make it Shareable
The success of your email marketing will depend to a large degree on reaching the right audience who indicates they want to hear from your spa or massage practice regularly. You can post a sig up form on your website and ask visitors to subscribe to your email announcements, also driving social media followers to the site. Unsolicited email promotions are essentially spam. Even if someone asks to receive your emails, you’ll still want to provide an ‘opt out’ or ‘unsubscribe” capability on the email for those who no longer to get them.
Your email marketing needs to be consistent with whatever other marketing you are doing to promote a special treatment or retail sale, for example. Use similar messaging and time the email to coincide with any ads or social media campaigns.
Your email should reflect the colors, fonts, images (make sure images link to your website or landing page) and other branding elements of your business. Also use the same template throughout your various campaigns so that your customers and prospects recognize that it’s coming from you.
Your content should be compelling and help tell your story. It also should be built around a single idea. If you include news, tips or information about your service offering, keep them short and use bullets.
Dear subscriber is not going to make your customers or targets feel warm and fuzzy about you. Make sure to use a first name; it makes subscribers feel that they have a relationship with you.
Don’t leave it up to your customers to figure out what to do. Provide some call to action, such as click here to book or order this gift certificate or buy this product for use at home use. You also can link to some useful information.
Embed shareable icons in your email so your customers can post the message to their own social networks.