Promoting Your Exhibition or Exhibit by Using email Marketing

Email marketing can be a very effective tool for promoting your exhibition or event. The problem these days though is that the benefits of e-marketing are being reduced due to more and more spam. Of thirty billion emails thought to have been sent last year, some statistics suggest that 60% of those emails were spam. The spam situation is so bad now that marketers, who have a genuine message to send out, are finding it harder and harder to get their information across to recipients about upcoming events and exhibitions. So what can we do to try and improve results? Some ideas are detailed below.

Subject Line:

One of the biggest mistakes when marketers send out their information regarding events and exhibitions, is that they include spam like words in the subject line. There are certain words which, if included, will almost definitely result in your email being automatically classified as spam. Words involving education should always be avoided as should words such as 'free'. Also ensure you differentiate your email subject line from the standard messages you receive. Including your company name at or near to the start of the subject line is thought to be very effective because it ensures that the recipient (having signed up to your database) will recognise the sender and be much more likely to open it.

Choose time of day and day of week:

You might be anxious to get news out about your next exhibition or event, but be patient. Plan your emails in advance and you will then have the time to choose the best send time.

From my own experience, try and send the emails in the mornings or lunchtime and avoid times late in the day. Try also to avoid sending just before the weekends because recipients may then end up checking the emails on Monday morning, a time when many weekend spam emails have built up in their email box.

Ensure you track the results using a web stats package:

To really have the best idea of the best time to send and to gather other useful statistics, put some tracking code into the emails and use software to track 1) opens and 2) click throughs. If you are not using your own mailing list then this tracking will be of particular use because it will give you a clear idea of which list broker or publication lists are the most effective. Some list brokers do block the racking but you can certainly ask them to provide statistics.

Provide a html and non html version or the email send:

You may miss potential visitors to your exhibition or event if you do not send a text version of the email. To ensure you capture as many people as possible, provide a text and html version when you send the emails.