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In this article we’ll talk about the dos and don’ts of email marketing, and how you can use it to increase traffic and your haunted house’s bottom line.

Very few online technologies run their courses and then make a come back as a solid means of increasing traffic and return on investment for a website.  Email marketing has done just that.  As the web really started to take off around 2000, we were all getting spammed beyond belief with marketing emails that we didn’t want.  Then, as the internet progressed and showed it’s self as a true marketing and commerce medium we started to get a little more order applied to the art of email marketing.  Now I can already hear people saying “I still get tons of spam to this day!  I don’t need a bigger penis”  I know, I know, me either.  These are not what we consider actual email marketing messages.  That’s just spam, plain and simple.

True email marketing is sending out a relevant message to someone that you know will have an interest in it’s content or that has shown an interest in your business.  It’s not about numbers.  As the old saying goes.  Quality not quantity, and it could not be more true than in email marketing.  Don’t spend time sending as many emails as you can.  Spend you time making the emails you send as good and informative as possible.  Here are five steps that we use when launching an email marketing campaign for a haunted house.

1. Make sure you have good data.  Some people have existing email lists, some people purchase lists based on the interest of the contacts.  Either way, make sure your data is good.  You should have all of your data cleaned and ready before you ever send a message.  Failure to do this will result in sending to messages that are un-deliverable or produce a lot of bounce backs.  When every email sent costs you money, it’s very important to know you’re only sending emails to active email accounts.  Most of the time your email contact list will be stored in a CSV file, which stands for comma separated value.  These files can be opened with just about any text editor, but for readability you’re going to want to open it with a spreadsheet program like Excel or Google Doc spreadsheet.  This will allow you to view your data in nice clean rows and columns.  So long as you have under 50K contacts, going through the file and making sure all of the email addresses are in the proper format should not be very difficult.  You could even write a formula that auto checks all the email addresses for the correct format, but that’s out of the scope of this article.  If analysing and organizing your contact list seems a bit out of your league feel free to contact Ministry80.com for a consultation on haunt website design and email marketing.

2.  Use the data you have.  Most lists should store quite a bit of information about the contact besides their email address.  First name, last name, city, state, age and last interaction is all great data to have.  So using this data to target the right customers for your email campaign allows you to create a much more personalized message and increase your clickthrough rate.  Addressing contacts by their first name with a personalized greeting is a great start to making good use of the data you may have.  Now let’s talk a little more about targeting based on contact information.

3.  Relevant information.  One of the most important aspects of any email marketing campaign, and especially large campaigns is delivering relevant content to the end user.  You can accomplish this by creating multiple messages and using a contact’s demographic information to determine which user gets which message.  For example, if you have user data on both local customers and people who live outside your city, you may want to create two messages.  One that is targeted to the locals and another that puts an emphasis on why your attraction is worth traveling to for the out of towners.  This is accomplished in email marketing by creating a rule that chooses which message the user will get based on the data in their location field.  It may not seem like a big deal on the surface, but the ability to speak directly to a certain group of customers can have a lasting impact on your haunted attraction marketing campaign.

4.  Creating your email content.  Now that we know who’s getting your email, lets take a quick look at what needs to be done to create an effective email marketing message and it’s content.  The look and feel of your message can be just as important as who it’s sent to.  Effective emails will both inform a user and intrigue them to click through to your website.  Content for email messages is created the say way you create a website today, only there are a few exceptions that you need to keep in mind.  First off, you must remember that the majority of users are going to be viewing your email through an online email application like Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo mail.  This means you have to make sure your message and it’s content fit into the mail message viewing area of a application’s interface.  A safe bet is to keep your email message no wider than 600 pixels.  The most important thing to keep in mind when designing an email message is that a lot of online mail applications do not fully support CSS in the message unless it’s coded as an inline-style.  This means using CSS to position elements isn’t really a good idea.  While practicing web standards based design is a must for today’s browsers, creating email messages is one of the few times I recommend using HTML tables to create your message layout.  Also remember that if your message contains images, you’ll need to make sure those images are uploaded to a web server where they are accessible.  If all of this seems foreign to you don’t worry.  Most email programs have sample templates that you can use to base your message on.  All you really need to do is change the information to reflect your message.  Though a well design email marketing message that matches your website and haunt style is a really great benefit, not having one should not stop you from moving forward with your campaign.  If you’re set on getting a custom designed email message, our friends at Ministry80 Interactive can help you no matter what your needs are.

5.  Gather data and review analytics.  Now that you have a good idea of what to send and who to send it to doesn’t mean you’re finished. Your email marketing campaign should always be evolving and getting better.  Make sure you’ll always gathering data on your customers and contacts any chance you get.  Offer incentives like coupons or discounts to customers or users who are willing to fill out a quick survey.  Make sure it’s optional and the info you ask for isn’t too intrusive, and know that a lot of users aren’t going to want to take the time to complete an online survey, but always remember that it doesn’t hurt to ask.  Having demographic information on  your customers will help you with all advertisers, not just your email marketing.

Lastly, make sure you review your campaign analytics.  Depending on the email marketing platform you’re using, you should have access to some great analytical data about your campaign.  Even the simplest of tools should offer you the ability to view open and click-through rates for your email campaigns.  Review this data, test different subject lines, content and targeted customers to see what performed best and then try to get a good understanding of why you came to your conclusion.  Just like with your haunted attraction, it’s all about finding what pleases your customers and why, that way you can be sure to use that information to your advantage on future campaigns.

We’ve covered a lot in this article, and I hope it helps you on your way to a great haunt email marketing campaign.

If you have any questions about anything discussed here or would like to suggest topics for future articles feel free to comment below.

Happy Haunting!