The marketing activity that is most closely tied to making a sale is:
A) A billboard on a busy street
B) A post on Facebook
C) An email sent at the right time
Despite most event managers’ comfort level with traditional media and their love affair with social media, email remains a key component of any online marketing plan. At Saffire, we have a favorite phrase, “predictive of a sale.” And email is, you guessed it, predictive of a sale. In fact, your highest revenue days will be the days you send email… even more so than when you post on Facebook!
How can you make sure your email is successful? And what does successful even mean?
First, you have to send to a big list. So make sure you promote your email list on every page of your website, as well as everywhere else you can think of. You might even consider having a contest among people who sign up for email during a certain people.
Second, your email has to be opened. To be opened, it needs to have a compelling subject line, it needs to come from someone they’ve heard of, and it has to be sent at the right time. The ideal time is generally felt to be mid-morning on Tuesday, but there is some new data out that suggests the highest open rates may be 8-9 am and 3-4 pm.
Why? The majority of emails sent are opened within an hour. Think about your day. You probably check email before 8 am, and therefore an email sent after this time won’t get lost in the shuffle. Sending at 3 pm is probably the latest you’ll want to try, since by 4 pm, people are thinking about heading home, eating dinner, etc.
Third, your email has to be clicked. Many events tell “the whole story” in their email. This is a mistake. Your goal is for people to click your email, go to your website, where they look around and possibly even buy (you sell online, don’t you?).
That’s it. Those are the nuts and bolts. Now you just have to come up with compelling messaging. Stay tuned! We’ll be sharing messaging ideas in future articles.
If you’re interested in talk to us about email or online marketing your event in general, please drop us a line at info@saffireevents.com or call 512-430-1123.