How often do you send emails to clients and what do you put in them?

[Shellie xx]

Im just wondering if any geeks out there send out regular emails to their clients and if so,how often?what do you put in your emails?how often do you do special offers and when youre not doing special offers, what do you put in your emails?

 

[bhhdesign]

Hi Im new on here and hopefully can offer some good advice..well I will try anyway.

The amount of times you email your clients is down to you, but do not go overboard, your client will end up either blocking your emails or sending them straight to the junk tray.

As for your subject/content be careful spam filters will cause you so many issues, each word you use will have some sort of weight and off the top of my head I cannot remember them all as each word brings different weight

ie,
"special offer" may have a weight of 0.894 whereas
"Free" will have a much higher weight 1.230

When your email hits the users account the spam filters will calculate the weight and if you go over a threshold you will end up in the spam folder.
This is not good, Skin Care by Toptotoes does not want to be sandwiched between "HSBC security Alert" and "Cheap Viagra Here" Tar and brush come to mind

Now I know the question you are going to ask is "Whats the scoring system and what is the threshold?", thats the tricky bit because each spam filter and each server has its own system so it is virtually impossible to say.

If lets say you send out a load of emails and you get a 60% read rate then you have cracked email marketing and you are doing very very well with your subject line and content....if its below 30ish% then you need to return to the drawing board.(aim for 40-50%)
I always advise setting up a couple of email accounts on yahoo, gmail, hotmail etc and play around with the emails and see how far you can push it till one of them reject your emails.

Spam filters will even reject terms that you think would go through

"Dear Friend"
"Info you requested"
"Visit our Website"
"Amazing"

This list could go on & on but you get the idea.

Also avoid capital letters and !£$%?

Hope this helps,all you have to do now is come up with a special offer that doesnt look like a special offer to the spamfilters but does to your client base.:lol:

And dont forget to monitor ALL your sent emails carefully and see what is happening to them, also a bit of A&B testing is always good, send 30 clients email A and 30 clients email B
And again monitor the success or failure of each one.

 

[tina]

Hi Im new on here and hopefully can offer some good advice..well I will try anyway.


And dont forget to monitor ALL your sent emails carefully and see what is happening to them, also a bit of A&B testing is always good, send 30 clients email A and 30 clients email B
And again monitor the success or failure of each one.

how can you monitor sent emails, i have a hotmail account, is it possible through that.

thanks

 

[Shellie xx]

Wow thats really super helpful ~ thank u!i am going to bare that all in mind from now on!so i was thinking of emailing perhaps once a month,sometimes with special offers (worded differently from now on!) and sometimes with just tips and advice so it just keeps me high up in their memory so they dont forget me if you know what i mean!

Im interested too on how you can monitor your emails,i use an aol account and cant see how i would monitor them!im at the stage at the moment where ive got all my clients email addresses and hav sent out 1 email with quite a few bouncebacks! xx

 

[Lynne Baker]

how can you monitor sent emails, i have a hotmail account, is it possible through that.

thanks

You really ought to be using a professional bulk emailing program such as constant contact, icontact, mailchimp, etc.
You should also NOT use a hotmail email address as your professional email. You should be using something along the lines of Tina (at) beautybox.co.uk
It doesn't cost a lot to set up a domain linked email account and projects a far more professional image.
Using a professional bulk emailer will allow to track who's opened your email, provides one click unsubscribes (which keeps you inside the DPA rules), and you can track clicks to hyperlinks too.
You can also brand your emails to match your website and biz cards etc.

And finally, you can schedule emails to go out at a later date and time.

 

[Martigirl]

You really ought to be using a professional bulk emailing program such as constant contact, icontact, mailchimp, etc.
You should also NOT use a hotmail email address as your professional email. You should be using something along the lines of Tina (at) beautybox.co.uk
It doesn't cost a lot to set up a domain linked email account and projects a far more professional image.
Using a professional bulk emailer will allow to track who's opened your email, provides one click unsubscribes (which keeps you inside the DPA rules), and you can track clicks to hyperlinks too.
You can also brand your emails to match your website and biz cards etc.

And finally, you can schedule emails to go out at a later date and time.

Is there anyone you would recommend for someone who does not consider themselves "very techy" .

many thanks xx

 

[taggyboy]

Hi

I agree with Lynne in respect of the law. I have just had my website re-designed and included a link to join our newsletter (which will be sent once a month).

When I requested the newsletter section the web designer advised that by law you have to have an unsubscribe button or you could be heavily fined and your website shut down or both. My designer has a control panel set up for sending, editing, monitoring and this will always have the unsubscribe sent with each email. I know not everyone has a web designer so thought I should advise on what I have been told.

I was totally unaware of this, hth

 

[Lynne Baker]

It always amazes me that people don't make themselves aware of what the laws are on email marketing. A lot of the women I deal with via the business networking group seem to think that planning, licencing, DPA, etc rules just don't apply to them!
For instance, how many of you have had a Fire Risk Assessment carried out on your premises? Even if that premises is your home? How many of you have had all your equipment PAT tested, even if you work from home?
There are loads of rules, regulations and bureaucracy which every business person needs to be aware of. Contact Business Link and ask them for advice. Ignorance is no defence; you'll get hammered even if you plead it!

As for bulk emailing and tech savvy - I use constant contact, but I do have an IT background. Again, if you don't know how to do these things get enrolled on a college course, or employ a trainer to help you. IT skills are as much a part of your business as beauty ones.

 

[kezza*]

I do a monthly email of special offers. A have a professional email address which my web designer set up for me. But I do know people who use their hotmail account and they are fine, me personally think it's up to you but I would say that having these things professionally done looks better.

On my client's record cards I ask them weather they would like to give there email address, for special offer's etc. And everyone does, I also do every email separately so that client's don't get everyone's email addresses, if that makes sense.

I put in the email special offer's, any new treatment's that's coming up, at the moment my xmas hours and promoting gift vouchers.

I find it works really well for me.

 

[Shellie xx]

I do a monthly email of special offers. A have a professional email address which my web designer set up for me. But I do know people who use their hotmail account and they are fine, me personally think it's up to you but I would say that having these things professionally done looks better.

On my client's record cards I ask them weather they would like to give there email address, for special offer's etc. And everyone does, I also do every email separately so that client's don't get everyone's email addresses, if that makes sense.

I put in the email special offer's, any new treatment's that's coming up, at the moment my xmas hours and promoting gift vouchers.

I find it works really well for me.

Thank you kezza.so do you run special offers every month? What kind of special offers do you run?how do you word them in your subject title?

 

[bhhdesign]

how can you monitor sent emails, i have a hotmail account, is it possible through that.

thanks

Like someone else said do not use hotmail to send business emails, and search for "Campaign Monitor" would give a link but Im a noob so I can't

Hi

I agree with Lynne in respect of the law. I have just had my website re-designed and included a link to join our newsletter (which will be sent once a month).

When I requested the newsletter section the web designer advised that by law you have to have an unsubscribe button or you could be heavily fined and your website shut down or both. My designer has a control panel set up for sending, editing, monitoring and this will always have the unsubscribe sent with each email. I know not everyone has a web designer so thought I should advise on what I have been told.

I was totally unaware of this, hth

And if you are obtaining peoples data then you need a privacy statement on your website to let them know that you are not going to sell it off to a 3rd party.

 

[allyballybee]

I use constant contact and it's really easy, you don't need to be technical at all. I send out a newsletter once a month with any news, special offers or treatments or products, new thingss, a treatment of the month and beauty tips. Then we have a template for last minute special offers which goes out if we any cancellations or white space in the diary, it fills up within minutes of sending the emails out.

I highly recommend it and find it a really cheap way of marketing to clients. I think I can recommend a friend and get you a first months trial free, so if you want, PM me your email and I do that for you.

 

[Martigirl]

I use constant contact and it's really easy, you don't need to be technical at all. I send out a newsletter once a month with any news, special offers or treatments or products, new thingss, a treatment of the month and beauty tips. Then we have a template for last minute special offers which goes out if we any cancellations or white space in the diary, it fills up within minutes of sending the emails out.

I highly recommend it and find it a really cheap way of marketing to clients. I think I can recommend a friend and get you a first months trial free, so if you want, PM me your email and I do that for you.

that is really kind of you thank you xxxxx thanks also for not making me feel any more of an idiot than I already do xx

[email protected] is my addy xx

 

[trulyscrump]

We have been using email as a main part of our marketing strategy for quite some time now (since 2005) and built up a great database.

We use Campaign Monitor and spent the money getting a template set up. Once it was up and running I find it manages itself and the girls in the salon can go in and create the newsletter each month, upload images, etc. and it handles all the unsubscribes and bounces (it's very intuitive).

I wrote a case study on it recently (hope you find it useful). Our big selling point is offering people a voucher when they subscribe and this has been very successful in building up our list.

bhhdesign's comments above about not being too salesy is VERY important. Remember, if you are doing a newsletter style email, it needs to offer value otherwise if you are just selling (whether you think it is or not) your email is effectively spam to the end user.

In terms of legislation, many of the online systems sit outside the EU, so this confuses the matter even more with email marketing. ie. The EU has the tightest restrictions of collection and useage of personal data and if your website is British and your business is British, but the data is sitting in America, it gets very very confusing in terms of responsibility.

If you are really getting into email marketing, I personally would suggest finding someone who can create you a template in a system (some of which have been mentioned above - eg. Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor) and get them to integrate the subscriber forms on your website. I can imagine, this would cost anywhere between £100 & £500 depending on who you find.

Then, all you'd need to do is send your email message on a regular basis making sure it offers value. In terms of Return on your initial costs, how many client bookings would you need to cover it? It could pay for itself very quickly.

Hope it goes well, whichever you decide.

 

[Martigirl]

We have been using email as a main part of our marketing strategy for quite some time now (since 2005) and built up a great database.

We use Campaign Monitor and spent the money getting a template set up. Once it was up and running I find it manages itself and the girls in the salon can go in and create the newsletter each month, upload images, etc. and it handles all the unsubscribes and bounces (it's very intuitive).

I wrote a case study on it recently (hope you find it useful). Our big selling point is offering people a voucher when they subscribe and this has been very successful in building up our list.

bhhdesign's comments above about not being too salesy is VERY important. Remember, if you are doing a newsletter style email, it needs to offer value otherwise if you are just selling (whether you think it is or not) your email is effectively spam to the end user.

In terms of legislation, many of the online systems sit outside the EU, so this confuses the matter even more with email marketing. ie. The EU has the tightest restrictions of collection and useage of personal data and if your website is British and your business is British, but the data is sitting in America, it gets very very confusing in terms of responsibility.

If you are really getting into email marketing, I personally would suggest finding someone who can create you a template in a system (some of which have been mentioned above - eg. Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor) and get them to integrate the subscriber forms on your website. I can imagine, this would cost anywhere between £100 & £500 depending on who you find.

Then, all you'd need to do is send your email message on a regular basis making sure it offers value. In terms of Return on your initial costs, how many client bookings would you need to cover it? It could pay for itself very quickly.

Hope it goes well, whichever you decide.

thank you that was really helpful xx