The basics of email marketing for your hair business
Published
17th Jan 2019
by charlottegw
Email marketing is one of the most effective tools that a small to medium hair business has to talk to existing customers, build customer loyalty, spread awareness and enhance brand reputation.
The Direct Marketing Association discovering that email marketing can generate 58% of all revenue for your business, if used appropriately, it gives you a fair idea where best to place your investment. But here are five questions to ask yourself before you send out any email marketing, according to Marios Italos founder of emailverifier.com
- Are you creating interesting and relevant content? The key to getting anyone to read anything is to make it relevant to them. Email marketing shouldn’t just be in-your-face advertising, but rather advertising cloaked in interesting, readable nuggets. You might create a piece on the top 5 styling trends for 2019 – and as an aside, mention that your salon offers them at this very reasonable price. You could discuss trendy news topics in your sector: vegan hair dyes, the integrity of hair extensions – where they’re from, how they’re made, and how you offer an amazing ethical alternative. Each time lead your audience back to you, but do it in an interesting fashion.
- Are you making the right amount of contact? You want your salon to be the first thought that comes into your client’s heads when they need a haircut. So you need to contact them regularly – but not so regularly as to become annoying. Test your email response rate until you find your Goldilocks mailing point: not too many, not too few, but just right.
- Are you using opt-in or double opt-in registration? Ask your subscribers to opt-in by entering their email address on a web form (e.g registration page) then double opt-in by sending them a confirmation email with a link to click which will confirm their subscription. By using double opt-in you can verify their address once they’ve signed up which helps you to reduce the number of defunct and accidental addresses in your mailing list. This means that your messages are reaching the right people and, importantly, that they want to hear from you.
- Are you rewarding your readers? Customers like to feel valued. By sending them occasional rewards – 25% off your next treatment, free kid’s cut with every parent styling, bring a friend for £5 off each – you will keep them interested and increase their loyalty.
- Have you validated your contact list? One of the biggest areas that businesses struggle with in email marketing is having all your emails landing in the Spam folder. This happens for a number of reasons – 1) you’re contacting people who don’t want to hear from you and they’re reporting you, 2) you have out of date addresses in your database and they’re automatically bouncing back which reduces your sender reputation 3) you use a lot of "spammy" words or phrases that make the advanced ISP spam filters catch you along with the bad guys. ISPs pick up on all of these things and if too many flags are raised, you can be blacklisted as spam sender. Validation software, such as EmailVerifier.com, can automate this process, removing any likely problem addresses and keeping your sending reputation up where it should be. Plus all of this is in a GDPR compliant environment.
