Most of the online marketing advice you read these days focuses on social media and mobile apps - the cool stuff. But just because the buzz surrounds the latest and greatest, doesn't mean you can forget the fundamentals. One "old-time" channel that deserves your attention is email marketing. It may not be sexy anymore, but it's still effective.A recent study conducted by Exact Target shows that 77 percent of consumers over the age of 15 prefer receiving promotional messages to their email inbox over direct mail, text messages and Facebook. As a matter of fact, Facebook was fourth on the list with only four percent of participants selecting it as their channel of choice of promotional messages. What does this mean? Inboxes may be crowded, but they are still where people want to receive promotional material.Below are three common email mistakes that your recreation organization may be committing:
1. The More the Merrier
Wrong! Stop looking at your customers as one group. In order to make effective use of your emails, you need to segment your audience into various categories based on their interests and past registrations. Once this has been accomplished, you can then begin tailoring your emails specifically to those groups. Put a plan in place to collect and segment data about your customers.
2. Telling Without Showing
Let's say you've created an email to be sent to last year’s basketball registrants announcing the launch of this year’s basketball camps & team registration deadlines. Great! You've told them, now show them how they can register by including multiple calls to action to register with links to your basketball registration. If you make it easy for them to quickly read and easily click right to registration, your email will be more effective.
3. If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again
Email is one place where this saying collides with another: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results." In email marketing, you don't want try the same tactics over and over if they aren't working. Check the statistics and adjust based on successful tweaks. Continue to modify until you get the results you are looking for.
