Make email marketing work for your practice

To keep your practice in the minds of previous clients and potential new ones, email marketing is a really useful tool. What’s more, it’s something you can easily set up and manage yourself if you want to, saving the expense of employing someone to send out your communications for you.

It may be a marketing option that’s been around for many years, but email marketing is worth spending time on even though there are more recent innovations you might be using to promote your practice, and in this guide we’ll explain why it’s worthwhile and how to get started.

The benefits of email marketing

Many interior design practices use social media channels to reach previous and potential clients, and you may have employed SEO strategies to bring people to your website, too, and both of these marketing options can be highly beneficial. But you should bear in mind that more people use email than social media.

It’s also the case that email has a larger reach than social media, where those who follow you don’t see everything you post. With email, you can also rely on the fact that those with email accounts check them regularly (at least daily or more often as a rule) and with greater frequency than their social media feeds.

The other benefit of marketing by email is that you don’t have to be concerned about the algorithm changes that can result in a sudden drop in reach, nor the fact that a social channel can fall in popularity or even disappear. You are the owner of the list of recipients of your communications.

Email service providers

Using an email service provider can assist in managing your list of email addresses and allows you to automate the process of sending your messages out. You can also personalise what you send. Consider these providers:

Mailchimp is popular with small businesses and easy to use. There is the possibility to try the free service first, while the essentials service, which has a low monthly cost, provides automations, scheduling and personalisation, with the more costly standard and premium options offering greater sophistication.

Constant Contact has a 25 year history and is also a popular choice. The least expensive core tier offers over 300 templates, and reporting on views and clicks. The more costly plus package provides automated emails and more. It is straightforward to use.

Sendinblue was founded in 2012, and also aims to make email marketing easy for small businesses. As with Mailchimp, you could start out with the free service, with a choice of lite or premium paid-for services that offer more features.

Make email marketing effective

There are a whole host of advantages to email marketing compared to other options, but although you can send out emails, what’s vital is that the messages are actually opened rather than deleted, and that recipients are motivated to stay subscribed.

The content of the email might be anything from a how-to that draws on your expertise, a speedy lesson on colour, or sharing a fabulous new resource or product you’ve found, for example. The story of a recent project can be a huge draw to read, too. While your goal is to attract new clients and get previous ones to return, recipients should feel there’s a benefit in taking time to look at your emails whether that’s because they’ll learn something, feel as if they’ve got the inside track, or connect to the story of how you met the challenges of a recent project, for example.

Focus on the details

The details of an email marketing campaign are crucial if it’s to prove effective. To keep those on your list opening and reading your emails, consider:

• Frequency – emailing too often can be off-putting. However, emails should be sent regularly enough that clients don’t forget about your practice. Think once a month, or fortnightly if you have enough to say.
• Make the subject line appealing – this can be make or break as to whether the email is opened at all. Make sure it communicates a benefit (which might be reading a story as much as learning something) and think about personalising it.
• Pay attention to the preview text – which gives you a little more space to demonstrate why the email is worth opening.
• Make the copy easy to read – avoid long sentences, and use frequent paragraph breaks, and devices such as bullet points.
• Think about the colour palette you select as well as the design of the email – both reinforce your brand as an interior design practice.

Email marketing advantages

Using email marketing doesn’t mean ignoring the benefits of posting on social media in order to promote your interior design practice, nor does it mean you shouldn’t pay attention to the quality of your website.

But email marketing is definitely worth your time and effort due to the ubiquity of email and the direct contact you can have with the people and businesses on your list. The information from your email service provider can also help you keep track of the effectiveness of what you send so you can adapt it accordingly.

Read our earlier article on How to use social media to win clients. You may also want to attend our upcoming CPD How to Start and Grow your Email List