If you’ve got an offline business, don’t underestimate the powers of email marketing. You can definitely use it to your advantage. It will give your business the mileage that it needs, regardless if you own a website or not.

To remind your customers that your business is always there to answer their needs, these are the five email marketing tips that you should follow:

1. Inform your past, present, and future customers about store specials through email.
What’s the best form of announcement of a sale or store event other than through a special invitation arriving at your customer’s inbox? Not only would you give your customers first-hand information about the upcoming special at your store. You will also allow them to prepare for the event that you have especially prepared for them. A big sale and a good package deal offered for a limited time are good enough reasons to send emails to your customers.

2. Send your customers holiday greetings through email.
You don’t have to email your customers just because you want to invite them to your store to buy something. Sending them a little Thank You note for their purchase, a Christmas card, or a Birthday card are enough to show them that you truly care for them as an individual and not just for the profits that you make from them.

3. Create informative materials or newsletters for your customers.
People are getting tired of the junk and the marketing materials they receive in their mail. If you are truly dedicated to superior customer service to your clients, you won’t add up to the clutter they are getting everyday in their emails. Instead, you make sure that you send them news, features, and items that they can be truly interested in. A regular newsletter would allow you to keep in touch with your customers for a long period of time. Try to get their permission for this.

However, even if you have painstakingly created a targeted email list, your emails are still susceptible to bouncing problems. An email will bounce if and when the intended recipient refuses or can’t receive the email at all. In cases like this, the message will go back to the sender with an error text signifying the reason the message can’t be sent.

But you can solve the problem of bouncing emails in just a few steps. However, this solution will only work for created email lists and not for bought email lists.

1. Put a proper sender’s name on your emails.
Email spam filters are always checking where the email came from before it can be cleared. If it can’t find the valid sender’s name in the proper fields, then it will be considered as spam. And as such, it will never find its way in the recipient’s inbox. It would stay forever in the spam folder until the come across it and take it out of there. And that scenario is not very likely.

2. Request your email subscribers to add your address in their contacts list.
If your name and email address are added to the contacts list, then the email filters that could bounce your message back would be avoided. It’s like giving your emails an exclusive entry pass to the inbox without having to go through scrutiny.

3. Double check the spelling and format of the email address you have on your list.
In the digital world, the worse mistake you can make is a human error. Make sure that you ask your prospects to retype their emails on the fields provided on the opt-in pages to be sure of an accurate address every time.

4. Provide for a confirmation link for subscriptions.
In order to make sure a real person had subscribed to your emails and not a robot, have your users check their emails and click the confirmation link provided therein. This way, you also protect your own interest. With an email confirmation process in place, you won’t be accused of sending unsolicited mails to your prospects.

Make subscribing to your email marketing list your call to action.
Even blog posts adhere to the same format with most marketing articles. You start with a strong paragraph, proceed with the body, and finish with an equally strong call to action. In this case, your call to action should be for readers to join your email marketing list.

Naturally, making that your call to action won’t be appropriate if the rest of your blog post has no direct connection to your list. But we’ll get to that later. For now, it’s important to remember ending every post, if possible, with this kind of call to action.

Choose topics that can be related to your email marketing newsletter.
What’s your next newsletter issue about? Can you write a blog entry about it? It’s important to establish a clear connection between your blog entry and your email newsletter. Your blog entry should provide readers a reason to subscribe to your list.

As for the topics discussed, your blog entry doesn’t have to focus on exactly the same issue. It would help, but it’s not always necessary. If your email newsletter is talking about the latest pet luxury products in the market, consider writing in your blog about the newest pet food flavors. They may not be directly related, but they do still fall in the same general category and is sure to be of equal interest to them.

Don’t give everything away.
Let’s say your next email newsletter tackles the 7 top reasons why puppies are so difficult to train. Your blog entry could feature two out of the seven reasons you’ve mentioned. Leave the rest to their imagination and let your call to action remind them that they can read the continuation of your topic by signing up for your email newsletter.

Market your email newsletter.
Of course, lets not forget to write posts which simply focus on convincing people to subscribe to your list. Today’s blog entry, for instance, may focus on the five best reasons why teenagers should subscribe to your email newsletter. Next week, you can write about the greatest benefits one can enjoy upon subscribing to your email newsletter.

The great thing about blogging is that it’s your turf and you can say anything and as much as you want. Use it to your advantage and it’s sure to have a positive effect on your email marketing list!

This is the reason why email marketing still is the most effective way of promoting and selling a product. This also explains why a lot of internet sites desperately find ways for visitors to sign up to their site and give their email addresses to them for subscription. Now, you don’t have to wonder why people keep asking for an email address even if all you really wanted to do was to leave a very short comment on a blog entry.

Emails are very effective marketing tools. However, they only work if they are used the right way. First off, you need to have a big list of active emails where you’ll send your marketing materials. And no, it doesn’t just have to be a list of uncategorized email addresses. It has to be a targeted email address list. Targeted email addresses mean that the people owning the email address you’ll send your campaigns to are the type of people who are going to benefit from your product the most.

Squeezing an email address out of your prospect is not easy. Getting their permission for you to send marketing campaigns to them is another thing. If you are not too familiar in creating an opt-in page, it is best that you partner with another who is an expert in this field. This is one good email service to use. You can also partner with another site with a lot of traffic. Every time a customer clicks on the box that is related to your business or product, then you get their email address for promotional purposes.

Constructing the sales letter itself is quite a task. You need to make an email that is not only interesting but action oriented as well. Every promotional email is only given a maximum reading time of 5 seconds. So you have to capture your reader’s interest within 5 seconds or less. If your sales letter is not effective, then it will be deleted forever.

If you don’t have any talents in writing and copywriting, it is best that you hire an expert sales writer. This is another email service you might want to get for a long-term basis. Having a good writer on call will allow you to make as many new email advertisements as you might need.

Don’t Send Unsolicited Email
They won’t read it, and that’s best case scenario. What could be worse is that they’ll label your email as SPAM and you risk getting blacklisted by their email provider or have your account suspended or removed. And the worst thing that could happen is for your recipients to spread bad things about you, which you can’t really blame them for since you’re the one at fault. Yes, we know you had good intentions, but it’s just not enough. If you truly have nice news to share then surely you could convince them to give you their email addresses!

Do Build Your Email Opt-In List
Email marketing always starts with an email opt-in list. Opting-in signifies their approval of receiving emails from you. Now, you’re probably wondering how to build your opt-in list, right? First, you need to hook their interest: what could you offer that they’d want badly enough to opt-in to your list? This could be a promise to provide them valuable tips on your area of expertise or other freebies. You could give subscribers a preferential discount rate or some other privilege.

Do Subscribe to a Proper Format
Email marketing newsletters adhere to a general format. It all starts with the subject line: make good use of this. Make sure to call your readers attention, let them know that it’s not SPAM and that they did sign up for it. Lastly, make sure it contains the key topic of your email.

Next to this would be the salutations. Be sure to personalize your letter by addressing them directly and using your recipients name. Your introductory paragraph should be brief and detailed, the body of your email equally concise, and your closing paragraphs containing a summary and call to action.

Don’t Bombard Them with Emails
Consider contacting them on a weekly basis at the least. If, however, you think that what you have to say deserves daily contact then at least give your subscribers an option to receive your email either daily or in a digested form.

Do Offer Them a Chance to Unsubscribe
Lastly, let them know right from the start that they always have the option to unsubscribe. When you do, you’re also letting them know that you’re confident they won’t do that because what you have to share would be truly valuable to them.

Email Marketing Tips on Making a Clearer and Stronger Call to Action

Place it right after your concluding paragraph.
For strategic positioning, your call to action should be directly below your concluding paragraph. Your concluding paragraph contains the strongest points of your email as well as whatever conclusions you’ve drawn. With key points still fresh on your readers mind, you’ll have an easier time achieving desired results if you issue your call to action right after.

Be specific.
Call to action doesn’t need flowery and elaborate statements. Brevity, simplicity, and power are what you should focus on. Make your sentences short as this will create greater impact. Lastly, be precisely clear about what you wish them to do so there won’t be any confusion about it.

Stick with one link.
Calls to action can become quite tedious if readers are asked to click multiple links. One or two links would do but links numbering four and up might be too much. If various links are however necessary then use the main pages link in your call to action. When they get there, that’s when you can explain more about the other links. Remember: your call to action is still a part of your email newsletter and you want to retain its uniformity and cohesiveness till the end. Don’t use your call to action to create a new letter within a letter.

Don’t be afraid to use font effects.
There’s nothing wrong about making your call to action more visible, but of course make sure that the distinctions you make are appropriate and appealing. You can underline and place the words click here in bold letters, maybe even change its font color, too.

Avoid using images.
Pictures may say a thousand words, but they don’t always show up and that’s going to be a big problem if you’ve got an image link serving as your call to action. As much as possible, avoid using images but if its necessary, make sure to double-check its links and provide a textual replacement just in case it doesn’t show up.

Now you know how to make your call to action clearer and stronger, what are you waiting for? Go and make your readers do what you want!