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.

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.

Make your subject line brief, detailed, and powerful.
Try keeping it to four or five words. Anything less might not completely deliver the message while anything more than that could lessen the impact of your emails subject line. Subject lines can take various forms. You may turn it as a teaser that’s meant to intrigue your readers, an announcement that’s meant to make your readers sit up and take notice, a question to make them ponder, or simply a greeting that’s just meant to make them open your email with a smile.

Don’t be afraid to insert first and second person pronouns.
Pronouns like I, you, we, our, and us makes your email more personalized and less like a plain marketing copy. It also establishes a relationship between you and your readers, and puts them in a more receptive mood with regard to your message.

Use headers.
Use headers to make it easier for readers to get the gist of your email and convince them at the same time that your email is worth reading from start to finish. As for creating headers, just use the same tips and guidelines provided for creating your subject line.

Keep paragraphs short.
As mentioned earlier, email newsletters are generally skimmed so you should keep your paragraphs short and focusing on one topic at a time. If the article you’re basing your email on contains long paragraphs, don’t be afraid to break them down into several short ones.

Have your email proofread and checked for plagiarism.
You and another person, preferably someone qualified, should proofread your email newsletter before sending it to your readers. Double-check spelling and grammar. Be sure you’ve got all your facts straight and the flow of thought is orderly and cohesive. A professional editor or proofreader will also let you know if there are unnecessary paragraphs to be cut out.

Lastly, use plagiarism-checking software to ensure that there are little, if any, similarities between your work and the article you’re basing your email newsletter on, never mind that you’re discussing the same topic. If your work passes then congratulations for a job well done!

Avoid including attachments.
People nowadays are wary about opening attachments, especially when they come from a company they’re in contact with for the first time. Attachments, after all, are one of the favorite tools of hackers for infecting computers with worms, bugs, viruses, and other kinds of malware. If you have a lot to say, try compressing it to fit the body of your email.

Avoid using images.
Graphics of any kind require more time to download; time that your readers may not have or are unwilling to give. If you need to use images, make sure that they’re small enough for easy downloading. If they have to be large, on the other hand, make sure that they’re spliced to facilitate their display.

In the event that the images still don’t show up in your recipients email server then make sure you’ve got a textual backup ready to fill the gap.

Keep it short but sweet.
If you want to wax poetry about your products and services, you can do that on your own turf like your blog or website. You cannot however do that in your email campaign since you’ll be in your customers territory and not yours. Thus, they have the power to tune out or shut you off any time they want. You can prevent that by keeping your message short but sweet.

Make sure your email won’t be mistaken for SPAM.
Assuming that you’ve done the right thing and were able to obtain your customers email addresses with their consent, make sure you have their approval as well for contacting them before sending out your email advertisements.

Don’t forget to include contact details.
You could get so busy perfecting the content of your email advertisement that you end up forgetting providing your recipients with your contact details. If you make that mistake, all your hard work will be for naught! Make sure that your contact details include your business name, address, landline, mobile and fax number, email and website address. Lastly, make sure to place it in a highly visible area!

Have the end product tested and reviewed before sending.
Try getting a sample audience and see how they react to your email ad. If the feedbacks positive then send away! If the feedbacks are negative then its back to the drawing board. Just work hard on your email ad and you’re sure to come up with something good in no time!