Happy New Year! No doubt you have many well intentioned new year's resolutions. How about another one? I must ensure I send good email campaigns regularly and in good time to take effect. To help you get the best from MailMaker123 we have come up with a suggested schedule for 2012. The first 3 months are shown below with more coming later. We've taken the example of an hotel or restaurant but the suggestions might spark ideas for you whatever business you are in. Don't forget to make your emails helpful and interesting. Try to avoid them appearing as a constant sales pitch.
January
A new year's greeting is good particularly if you share some of your plans for 2012. It helps to build rapport with your subscribers. If you are planning some exciting development in your business this year then why not talk about it. Even small changes can be the source of good content.
For example if you are thinking of offering a different type of cuisine or plan to introduce a new spa treatment you could mention it and link through to your Facebook page where you could have a poll asking readers to vote for their favourite option.
You could also share some spectacular winter photos and finally you could suggest that they start thinking about plans for Valentine's Day.
February
Spring is finally in the air! Get everyone thinking about the upcoming Easter break by including a link to a video on your website or YouTube channel of some fun local activity. Link through to your Easter offers page.
Valentine’s Day may be significant in your business. If so then make sure to send your February newsletter out in good time before the 14th to allow it to work it’s magic. If you’ve been busy adding the details of all those who have had their wedding in your hotel to your email database then you could easily create a segment of your list and send a special offer or gift to those couples.
March
Your St.Patrick's Day greeting may be simple or more elaborate depending on your customer base. If you have a good many readers outside of Ireland you might consider a special email campaign just to them. This can be achieved by creating a segment of your list based on the rule country=not Ireland (ask us if you need help with this). You could link to a humorous Paddy's day video or simply create a slideshow of beautiful Irish scenery. Don't forget to include a website link, a good description and keywords to any video you upload to your YouTube channel. The combination of an email campaign and video can really increase traffic to your site if done correctly. Also you could run a competition – you could have the entry requirement be that all your readers have to do is forward the email to 3 friends. You will see from the reports who has entered – simple! A forward from a friend is a very powerful qualified referral even if you offer a prize! Of course you can mention your Easter and Summer Break offers now too.
We hope these suggestions have given you some food for thought. We'll be posting our ideas for April, May and June very soon.
