Email marketing is one of the most vital elements in online business today. If you are going to make it in e-commerce, you need to know the ins and outs of email marketing. Email marketing reaches the public in one of the most convenient ways. While may people find email marketing annoying, they still tend to stay on the email lists that are part of their favorite companies. They may only open up one in ten emails, but that one email leads to a sale over 45% of the time. Those are pretty good odds for repeat customers.
Email marketing is much more cost effective than direct mail. Email marketing also leads to more direct sales than direct mail. Almost all large companies spend their resources developing their email marketing campaigns and are allowing their direct mail campaigns to either die out or just mirror their email marketing messages.
The internet has brought an abundance of advantages to all sorts of business owners. In fact, nearly three quarters of online business owners do not have a brick and mortar complimentary store. Most online success stories are those who started their e-business in a home office and build it from the ground up into a highly successful company. This means that anyone with the right information and a little ingenuity can really start an online business if they have the drive and the desire.
Using email marketing to push through to the head of the pack is a simple game of knowing who to send your email marketing materials to, which information should be included, and who to not send your email marketing materials to. Spam laws have tightened up quite a bit over the past several years, and the penalties for spamming are becoming pretty stiff. The most simple and most effective way to stay out of trouble is to avoid accusation and avoid sending spam. Spam by definition is the receipt of an email that was not requested or not deemed acceptable by the recipient. If you don't have permission, do not send the email.
Gather names and email addresses through legal and acceptable venues, such as previous clients, opt in lists, and physical encounters. If someone requests the removal of their name and email address from your list, do so immediately. It just isn't worth the consequences.
Your email campaign should be customer directed. You want to offer what your clients want to hear. All people who spend money like to know when you have a sale on their favorite items. All people who spend money can be convinced to spend it in your direction if they are presented with a reasonable benefit, even if that benefit is psychological or emotional. Find out what your clients want to hear by offering them something in return for filling out a brief survey directly dealing with your company. Do you clients want off season sales or do they want special bonuses? Do they want to be informed of new products or do they want to be informed when their regular purchases are available for less? While you will want to include all of your campaign information in each and every email, what you are really doing is research to find out what information should be listed first.
Email marketing campaigns are a great way of keeping your client base updated as well as a good way to help you keep up with current records. Having a snail mail address is helpful. When email addresses become obsolete, sending out a snail mail reminder that they need to update their email address in order to receive great offers such as a free bonus with their next purchase can help keep your email list updated.
Give your client base an easy method of subscribing, either through single opt in sign ups during visits or purchases, as well as easy opt out options. Maintain all your records to be able to prevent serious consequences from falling on you should you be accused of spamming. Having documented records of their opt-in as well as all opt-out records, any accusations are more than likely going to be dropped as a miscommunication. Keep it clean and you'll see ample positive results.
Keep your creative juices flowing. When your clients open your email, make it worth their while. You are competing with at least twenty five other companies that your client has yet to opt-out of. That means that you have to be ahead of the pack, with entertaining emails and fabulous special offers.
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249
Date Published :
Nov 15 2008