With each day comes new emails marketing random products from floor rugs to prescriptions to spa services 1.) it’s overwhelming. 2.) It’s frustrating. Society has gotten to the point where these generic messages go to a junk folder that you don’t ever look at. As a small business, are you wasting your time, energy and resources for nothing? Can you get ROI out of your email campaigns or should you skip this form of advertising all together?

Absolutely invest the time and energy into email marketing right along with direct, social and mobile. Your return on investment relies on your marketing campaign and your brand identity depends on it.

So, what do you do to retain current customers and generate new leads without being a pain? The new year is a great time to take steps to realign company priorities.

Write Better Subject Lines

It’s all in your headline. Not only do you have to engage your readers, you want to blow their minds with your subject line. It needs to be short and to the point, witty, intriguing and be sure it offers something fresh. Never include false statements. If you offer “free” make sure it’s free. The four main functions of a subject line: to gain attention, select the audience, stay consistent with your brand and get the reader into your body copy (where you have a whole other job to do), according to The Copywriter’s Handbook.

Web Marketing Today online suggest using fresh words like, “discover,” “introducing” and “just arrived.” Action words are good, but add some meat as well. Any small business can write “save” or “bargain” in their headline and it gets easier and easier to overlook (and trash) these if they’re too generic.

Target Subscribers

What is a transactional email? A welcoming email when someone signs up for your site or a notification email letting a customer know action was taken, say, on a social media site that had you in common. You can easily track current clients and customer leads through different methods. See who simply opens the email vs who clicks a link inside leading to your website. You can also target subscribers by analyzing the results of a transactional email campaign in order to address personal needs. These systems help you GeoTrack the locations in which people live in order to give you more knowledge about leads.

Balance

You have a very important message that needs to be easily understood and consistent across every marketing platform. Keep everything up-to-date and balance occurrences in your customers’ faces. It’s delicate because you want to keep brand awareness visible, so the client doesn’t feel neglected or excluded; but at the same time, you don’t want to be annoying. Many experts suggest small businesses survey clients and ask them what their preferred communication plan is.

Customization can happen through survey tools and marketing programs. You can find out how often people want to hear from you across all platforms: mail, phone, email, social media.

In your quest to balance customer communications, create a well-rounded portfolio of contact strategies. Include newsletters and white papers with economic research for the analytical types and emails, videos and infographics for the those more interested in lifestyle. If some of these layouts are not your forte delegate. Spending time on things you’re qualified to do can set your small business apart.