Email marketing is one of the most powerful, yet vastly underused, marketing tactics at the disposal of business owners, including those in the trade publication industry. Through the use of successful email marketing, trade publishers have the ability to reach potentially thousands of customers at once to announce new products and services, engagement opportunities, and more. However, wielding email marketing properly takes some forethought; failing to put in the time to plan could mean your email marketing campaign is nothing more than a big waste of time and resources.

Targeting the Right Audience

First and foremost, any successful email marketing campaign begins by targeting the right audience. After all, if you are just blindly sending out emails, what good is that going to do? Email marketing needs to be carried out just like a traditional marketing campaign: know your demographic and seek it out. In order to do this, you’ll want to gather email addresses from customers and potential customers who visit your company’s website(s) and social media profiles.

One way to entice people to do this is to promise (and deliver) premium content in exchange for the ability to send out promotional emails. You can also consider purchasing or renting lists from marketers, but beware when using this tactic; in many cases, potential customers will not like being contacted by third-party companies, and as such, they will be less likely to convert.

Creative, Innovative, and Valuable Content Wins the Day

As mentioned, you’ll want to promise and deliver content in your emails, but this content can’t just be any old content. Instead, it needs to be valuable and engaging. Promoting your products and services through email is fine, but for the most part, only people who were planning on making a purchase will pay attention. Instead, include valuable content in order to not only catch a reader’s attention, but also to entice him or her to click through.

For example, you could include a promotional piece in your next email about an upcoming book you’re publishing, but alongside that piece, you could include a link to a video interview with the author in which he or she discusses his or her creative process. This way, you not only get to promote the new book, but you have a chance to engage readers and entice them to make a purchase.

Keep Subject Lines Snappy

Finally, remember that it takes a customer or prospective customer opening your emails in order to gain a potential lead to a sale. As a result, make sure your subject lines are snappy, short, to the point, honest, and enticing. While that may seem like a tall order, it’s worth noting that most marketers find that the subject line of an email is one of the top two things involved in creating conversions through email marketing.

If in doubt, write out at least five different subject lines and then bounce them off of other people in order to see which one is the best. This way, you’ll not only give yourself some time to evaluate and reevaluate your options, but you’ll also receive input from others, and this is always a good route to take when being creative.