How often have you lost touch with someone who said they wanted to work with you but weren’t quite ready? And wasn’t it because you didn’t have a system in place, an ongoing marketing vehicle, Bangladesh Email List to keep you top of mind without too much effort?
Well, those days are gone-because email marketing is here. Don’t worry. This isn’t about spam. It’s simply the process of using email to keep in touch with-and keep your name in front of-those with whom you have (or would like to have) a relationship. This includes past, current and possibly future customers, as well as vendors and colleagues, even friends and family because you never know where the work is going to come from. These people want to hear from you. In fact, designers who use this marketing tool are often surprised by the positive feedback they get from their networks in response to their email newsletters.
An email marketing campaign accomplishes many things at once. It’s the ideal medium to showcase your creativity, share your knowledge and build credibility, while also spreading the word about your services and distinguishing you from other designers. Email newsletters also drive traffic to your Web site in a much more reliable and controllable way than search engines. And best of all, email serves as a prompt for your recipients. When they get a message from you, it encourages them to reach out.
Creating Content
The major challenge to creating an email newsletter is deciding what to send and then gathering (or creating) that content. But if you start with a simple strategy, it will be easier to fit into your life. Here are four different approaches used by designers around the country:
1. Show off your work. This is the most obvious strategy, but instead of just showing a pretty picture, use an email campaign to tell a story that describes a problem you solved for a client. Here’s an example:
Be Design
For three years, the team at Be Design, based in San Rafael, CA, used a direct-mail postcard campaign to keep in touch with their network. But in 2002, they replaced that effort with an email campaign and for almost a year they’ve been sending their “E-Note” to 800 clients, prospects and press contacts every four to six weeks. The strategy, according to Linda Nero, marketing director of Be Design, is to be in constant dialogue with the firm’s network, remain top-of-mind and build awareness of its work.
The “E-Note” is simple, informative and memorable, and most often includes recent projects presented in case-study format. It’s generated in HTML, and the subject line of each issue-recent examples include Fantastic Presence, Creative Presence and Essential Presence-is tied to the firm’s tagline, “We create brands with presence.”
