This is the second article in a 3-part series on The Silent Generation, Baby Boomers and the Web. You can find Part 1, here.
What is the most popular online activity for Internet users ages 64 and older? According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, the answer is: e-mail. A whopping 74% of Internet users ages 64 and older send and receive e-mail on a regular basis.1 So, if you are not communicating with your clients online, you may be missing a great opportunity to connect with them.
E-mail marketing can give you a powerful, cost-effective way to send permission-based messages to your existing clients. It can also help you stay in touch with your clients between reviews, build stronger personal relationships, prompt quicker response, and track interest.
Here are 10 e-mail marketing tips that can help you get started.
Tip 1: Comply with the CAN-SPAM Act. This piece of legislation established specific guidelines that you must follow when you send e-mail marketing messages. If you do not comply with the Act, you can face very strict criminal or civil penalties. To become familiar with the CAN-SPAM Act, you can visit www.ftc.gov. Additional information is available at The Electronic Privacy and Information Center: www.epic.org.
Tip 2: Build and grow your in-house e-mail marketing list. Start by asking your clients for their e-mail addresses and permission to send e-mail to them. Remember to ask your clients for their e-mail addresses each time you interact with them: phone calls, direct mail, printed forms, trade shows and workshops. Provide opportunities for your clients to sign up for your online resources such as electronic newsletters, announcements, or other important information.
Tip 3: Include a valuable offer in your e-mail message. Each time you send an e-mail to your clients, offer something of value and then make it easy for them to receive it immediately. You may want to post your offered item, such as an article or checklist, on a separate landing page or series of landing pages. Whatever you offer, make sure that you state it with a strong, clear call to action.
Tip 4: Write for e-mail readers. E-mail readers have short attention spans and tend to scan copy. Therefore, you must capture their attention quickly. You can do this by putting your offer and call to action at the top of the page, or above the fold. And in your body copy, use short sentences and bulleted paragraphs.
Tip 5: Use simple, uncluttered e-mail layout and design. Don't assume that fancy design is better. Sometimes plain text e-mails will outperform messages with full graphics. When considering your e-mail layout and design, consider these suggestions:
- Lead with your offer, newsletter title or other critical information.
- Use generous white space between and around blocks of copy.
- Avoid unnatural sentence breaks by letting the text wrap naturally from line to line.
- Limit the length of each line to 60 characters or fewer.
- Limit the length of each paragraph to four lines or fewer.
Tip 6: Use the recipient's e-mail address in the "to" line of your e-mail message. Do not use the name of a list.
