Not too long ago, we explored some of the basic concepts behind email marketing and link building — why you need it, and how to get started using it.
Today, we’re going to delve a little deeper into email marketing with a series of advanced email marketing tips for casino marketing programs. Sending your emails is the first step. Now you have to make sure you’re getting through spam filters and writing copy that’s geared toward your readers and hooking them in to every mail you send.
Controlling CAN-SPAM and email filters. The CAN-SPAM act is a U.S. government regulation requiring email marketers to follow certain rules. It’s not just a bulk email regulation, it “covers all commercial messages, which the law defines as ‘any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service,’ including email that promotes content on commercial websites,” the FTC’s own website states.
“The law makes no exception for business-to-business email. That means all email – for example, a message to former customers announcing a new product line – must comply with the law.”
The law lays out a series of rules, stating that you must:
• Identify your message as an ad;
• Avoid false or misleading header information and subject lines;
• List your physical or mailing address on every message;
• Enable recipients to opt out of your list and provide an easy means for doing so.
Consider these the guidelines, then, for starting your new email marketing campaign. Everything you do, from this point on, should fit within the guides laid out by the government. And that’s not hard to do — it can even help push you to create content that’s even more unique.
Keep it relevant, and interesting. Today, people are so inundated with emails that one of the biggest challenges for email marketers is to get their attention.
“Email newsletters, announcements and ads were novel in the beginning,” explains Rob Van Slyke at Vertical Traction. “People subscribed to everything they could find. Brands were sending anything and everything with no targeting. The novelty soon wore off, and brands had to rethink their game plan.
“Email marketers adapted to the demands of subscribers by providing increasingly more relevant and personalized content,” Van Slyke continues. “Many are still struggling on how to accomplish it but we have identified the challenge and the consequences for not adapting are clear. Give me relevant content and let me control my subscriptions or I’ll unsubscribe.”
There are theories that social media is set to actually replace email marketing that have been getting quite a bit of press. While such trends should certainly not be ignored — should even be embraced — predictions that any one element of online marketing is replacing another should always be regarded with a huge grain of salt.
Personalize. Keeping it relevant dovetails into email personalization — a necessity in advanced email marketing. As Von Slyke hints above, to effectively market to people, you need to speak directly to them.
Tyler Garns of SmallBizTrends.com uses the following analogy: Email marketing that doesn’t personalize to the reader is lazy, akin to a sloppy salesman reciting facts without really communicating. “A bad sales rep will typically memorize the spiel and ‘data dump’ on the prospect regardless of what the prospect says, regardless of the person’s body language and regardless of any buying signals,” Garns explains.
“A good sales rep, on the other hand, will listen carefully and adapt the message to each person’s individual needs,” Garns continues. “Good sales reps sell significantly more because they are always able to share something relevant and valuable to the prospect. They listen, adapt, and respond with the right message for each individual prospect every time.”
That ability to know what kind of communication will work for each prospect, and to adapt messages to that person, requires more work, of course. But a system can still be worked out to personalize messages:
Separate your email lists by the types of customers who sign up to them. With your email building lists (as we discussed here), you can categorize prospects by:
• How they signed up
• When they signed up
• Why they signed up
Knowing these factors goes a long way towards being able to communicate effectively with your casino marketing program prospects.
Questions? Comments?
Have you had any direct experience of advanced email techniques that worked particularly well — or that didn’t work at all? Have any particular email service providers excelled at email marketing, or failed? Sound off in the comments and share your thoughts and experiences with the Casino Affiliate Programs community.