Euro 2016: The power of email marketing

The benefits

Each email address has an approximate value of £84.50. This is a huge source of untapped revenue you can generate organically throughout the year, even when the football furore has died down.

As opposed to traditional marketing, email is a free and versatile tool allowing you to communicate directly with your customers. You can tailor your campaigns to suit specific demographics and track interactions with your correspondence to measure success.

When customers receive an email they are exposed to your brand. This means even if they're not immediately compelled to come down the pub for some nachos and a pint, when they are, you’ll be the first name they think of.

Building your email lists

There are a number of ways to gather contact information from your customers, which build hype around your products now and benefit your business later.

• Create a newsletter with great content. Consider who you're targeting and what will interest them. You can advertise new product lines, local news and upcoming events. Special promotions and the opportunity for a bargain are a great way to tempt people to leave their information. Leave a signup sheet by the bar, advertise your email address on posters and table top info boards.
• Competitions are a great way to drum up a buzz for your products. During the Euros think of football themed competitions, raffles or sweepstakes and gather email addresses to contact the winners. Get the whole family involved by running a children's competition and collect email addresses from parents.
• Additionally run competitions online and regularly post relevant content on your social media with a link to your website. Have an option to sign up to your newsletter and ask your current subscribers to share your content. Emails that include social sharing buttons have a 158% higher click through rate. Existing customers act as brand ambassadors who encourage friends and family to sign up expanding your reach to potential new customers.
• Supporting a charity is a great way to get your name out there and show your business has ethical concerns beyond pouring a pint. Invite your customers to a fundraising event. This gets people through the door while helping a good cause. Consider choosing a local charity as this will garner a lot of support from the surrounding community.

Designing a successful email campaign

The first point of contact when receiving an email is the subject line. Your customers engagement with this text is the deciding factor in whether your email gets read or deleted. It should provide a flavour of the content but needs to be punchy and relevant enough to avoid the delete button.

Be wary, the frequency of an email campaign can tread a thin line between informative and irritating. 69% of customers say too many emails are the main reason they’d unsubscribe. Bombard your customers with samey content too regularly and they are unlikely to read your emails, ultimately unsubscribing to avoid clogging their inbox. Quality over quantity applies here; One effective email is more valuable than multiple poor ones.

Create content your customers want to read. It has to be relevant, engaging and informative. How will they benefit from reading your email? Make use of national holidays (Mothers day/bank holidays/ Christmas) to send themed content promoting your business. Maintain a consistent and friendly tone throughout your communications and be concise, anything too long and the reader loses interest. 54% of readers are now accessing email on their phone so make sure your content is mobile friendly.

Our data showed the average pub is expected to see a 21% jump in takings during the England V Wales match on the 16th of June. This figure was verified by the BBC, access the link here; bbc.in/1Y5VQFi