Building a better business is about forming and securing relationships. Customers want to be able to trust you, and that includes any and all marketing you do. If you’re sending out email campaigns directly to customers or would-be customers, it’s important that they remain safe from hackers and scammers and that your business stays secure, too!
With those ideas in mind, let’s talk more about how you can keep your email marketing campaigns secure, as well as some best practices for sending out successful email blasts.
Securing Your Business from Scammers
Cybersecurity has become a hot issue in recent years because data breaches are happening more frequently. One risk businesses take when sending out an email marketing campaign that isn’t secure is Business Email Compromise (BEC).
Typically, BEC happens within a company, where a scammer poses as the CEO of the company or sends an email as someone from HR. They’ll do things like ask for personal information or a transfer of funds to a different account. Since 2016, this kind of fraud has cost its victims $26 billion.
You can protect your business from BEC by building a cybersecurity culture within your business. Train employees to be hypervigilant about strange-looking emails.
Additionally, you should put stronger passwords in place when sending out email campaigns internally or to customers. Having a strong password that’s hard for hackers to break into can make all the difference in keeping your campaigns secure. Since remembering more complex passwords can be pretty challenging, a good idea is to use a password manager that stores all of your passwords in one secure location. This enables you to have distinctive, robust passwords for all of your crucial accounts as opposed to using one password for all of them, which is something you should never do.
Keeping Recipients Safe
Once you’ve taken steps to keep your internal email campaigns more secure, it’s time to look at your customers and potential customers. As stated above, email campaigns are the bread and butter of marketing for many small businesses. So, it’s important that your recipients who have opted in to receive your emails feel that they can trust whatever you’re sending out.
One way to keep recipients safe is to offer password protection. When you share links and/or files in your campaign, you can have your recipients first put in a special password in order to access them. This keeps their data secure and actually lets the recipient know that your business cares about their privacy and security.
An easy way to keep an eye on security in email marketing is to invest in email marketing software. These applications typically have multiple layers of encryption that go far beyond what your standard firewalls can provide. Which client you choose will be based on your company’s needs and size, so don’t be afraid to do your research when it comes to finding a software program that will help to keep your campaigns safe.
How to Create Better Email Campaigns
Your customers’ security and safety should be a top priority when sending out any kind of email campaign. Again, it’s all about building trust and securing relationships. But, once you have precautions in place to keep them safe, actually creating a campaign they’ll trust and respond to is the next step.
It starts with formatting your email the right way. Use headlines that draw the readers’ attention, and share stories that connect with them. Actually, the more realistic and personal your content is, the more likely it is that your recipients will trust what it says. If it sounds automated and cold, some people might view it as nothing more than a sales pitch or scam and click away.
If you really want to go the extra mile in making your email campaign more personal and trustworthy, and a few special touches. Put a spotlight on one of your business’ employees.
Or, include a fun poll for the recipients to take. Not only will it encourage some action, but the poll results can give you a better picture of click-thru rates and who is actually responding to what you’re sending.
Finally, you can create incentives for the recipients of your emails. Earlier, we talked about password protection and how that can help readers feel as though they’re special “members” of your campaign. You can further that idea by offering them special deals and discounts exclusively via email.
As you can see, there are plenty of ways to upgrade your email marketing campaigns. But, it should always start by keeping security in email marketing as a priority – both internally and for customers. When you can build consumer trust through these campaigns, your business will continue to grow and see success through stronger customer relationships.
Author: Ainsley Lawrence
Next: How To Write Effective Emails: The Ultimate Guide For Beginners
It might not always be easy to know where to start when you’re new to email marketing. In our next blog post, we will share some insight on planning an effective email marketing campaign.
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