Email marketing has a wide variety of possibilities and methods with which you can achieve your marketing goals. Pre-planning and the right setup to achieve success are the things you will need to make your ebusiness and your reputation grow.
First, you don’t want to get over-zealous. The main thing you need to avoid at all costs is spamming. Spamming is still used widely even with the government establishing new restrictions and more fines. You really don’t want to have to deal with that, do you?. Besides the legal hassles, the professional image of your site and your own “brand” or reputation will also suffer if you send mail to folks unsolicited.
Spamming usually requires a database that contains a huge list of e-mail addresses set up so that your message can be broadcast to the victims with one click. The reason for this is that spamming can’t really be profitable in small numbers because of the very low open rate of the message. The problem with it (besides the governmental restrictions and associated fines) is that it irritates the recipients and destroys the integrity of your campaign, which in turn keeps people from referring to your site.
You must make your website unique with your own personality. You need to see to it that your site makes your customers feel safe, secure and personally cared for. E-mail is important, because it can be one of the most affordable ways to keep in touch with your customers and keep them interested in your content, which in turn will bring in more sales.
The best way to handle email permission is to first let your customer know that you will not share their email addresses with third party companies. The next thing to do is to create the need for their e-mail addresses for future benefits they can receive.
For instance: Discount coupons that are only available to members who receive email notifications. Also, and widely popular, is offering a report or ebook download link that you send them by email.
Of course, if you can send them an email it means that you already have their address so just be cool and try not to annoy them too much and they’ll stick around to buy again from you.
Remember, “The money is in the list!” So don’t screw it up, try to provide good content and share your treasures because in the long run your business and your reputation will both grow.
B. Woodruff (d.b.a. Woodco) is a freelance content writer/proofreader who is enjoying a modest success as an affiliate marketer. Current sites are; Affiliate Agendas R Us and North Idaho Herbal among others.
Formerly: http://receivedtext.org/articles/