I received an email the other day from a company [name withheld to protect the guilty!] that provides online booking software for spas. This is a great functionality to add to a website and I have recommended them to more than one web design client in the past. My bone of contention wasn’t with the actual business but rather, with the email I received. The email was of a promotional nature and had a great special for the month of May. Fantastic! I actually thought about sharing the details on Twitter until I tried to find a link on the email to their website. There was not one active link to their website. That meant if I really wanted to share the site I would have had to type in the url or Google it. Guess what? I couldn’t be bothered. I was too busy and moved on to the next email in my very full inbox.
This business missed a great opportunity for online viral marketing because of one critical mistake in their email marketing.
If you are going to use email (e-blasts, newsletters etc) as part of your internet marketing strategy, it is really important that you include links to your site. Most email marketing software (iContact, Constant Contact, Mad Mimi) will actually track your click through so you can monitor how much traffic is being sent to your site.
Ways to add links
- Add text links to any products or services featured in the email.
- Make any images or graphics clickable to your website.
- Make your logo a link to your homepage.
- Include a footer on your email that includes contact info including a link to your website.
If you don’t bother including links to your site, I can guarantee that the traffic will be low and will cost you lost sales.
