Email Marketing - The Easy Way to Spread the Word

Marketing love it or hate it, its a vital part of running a business, and a must if your business is to survive and grow. Whatever form your marketing takes, deciding on an effective strategy combined with affordable costs will possibly involve many long hours of thought and discussion before any campaign is even put in place.

As a business owner your place is running your business - and that includes marketing; so how do you achieve both of these time-consuming duties without inventing a 30-hour day? For the marketing side of things at least, there is a solution.

Easy, Fast and Low-Cost

One of the most efficient delivery methods is email marketing; currently the fastest and most cost-effective way of getting your companys message to hundreds or even thousands of businesses at a fraction of the cost of paper-based campaigns.

There are now many good email marketing programmes available, most of which will manage every aspect of your campaign from start to finish including those vital follow-up emails, which are often forgotten or ignored but much more important than youd imagine.

Personalised Communication

Think about the paper-based advertising that arrives through your letterbox nearly every day. Leaflets and flyers advertising all sorts of services and products; promising you this and that; discounts here, free gifts there, and where does the majority of it end up? In a rubbish bin unread, ripped up and forgotten.

The same thing happens to many marketing emails; why? Because for the most part they are impersonal messages that have been sent to countless numbers of businesses without having been addressed to anyone in particular in the hope that somebody will read them and act on the information; consequently, they meet the same fate as their paper counterparts, albeit electronically.

Effective Targeting

Playing the numbers game is fine if youre happy to get one or two responses out of thousands of emails sent, but effective targeting could significantly increase the amount of replies and ultimately your sales. So how do you boost the chances of getting your emails read? Quite simply by personalising them and making the readers feel as though you know them.

Studies have shown that people respond better to emails that address them by their first name - this is the first step in gaining the targets attention and getting him or her to read on. Many email marketing programmes have a facility allowing you to build a comprehensive subscribers list from which the information gathered can be used to address each and every email to a different person and the content tailored to suit that person; this means there is much higher possibility of a favourable response.

Trust and Credibility

Good customer relations thrive on efficient communication. Your clients want to know what is going on; they want to be kept informed about new products, promotions and discounts. They want to be notified about special deals, loyalty schemes or preferential rates on bulk purchases. In other words, they want to know everything; regular email newsletters enable them to do just that.

Email is an excellent way of building credibility and gaining customer trust. Your customers want to be assured that you know your product or service inside out, and by sending them regular information-filled emails you can prove it to them. Credibility and trust, once established can lead to a significant increase in business and a respected company reputation, which in itself is priceless.

Making Use of Feedback

Customer feedback is extremely valuable for assessing the effectiveness of a marketing campaign or inviting opinions on your services or products, but many businesses shy away from asking too many questions in the mistaken belief that their customers will see it as a waste of time.

Surprisingly, most people will happily take the time to complete a short email questionnaire, and because they are not face-to-face with you they are likely to be much more honest in their replies, which in turn enables you to target your marketing far more accurately.

First Port of Call

Marketing shouldnt stop when the orders come flooding in; it should be an on-going process regardless of good or poor sales. Regular emails and newsletters play two important roles in marketing. Firstly, they keep your customers informed and up to date with your products and services and any promotions you may be running.

Secondly, they let your customers know youre there and thinking about them this is a simple but often overlooked strategy that surprisingly is appreciated by customers who like to know you havent forgotten them once youve received their cheque! Constant communication will go a long way in ensuring that when those customers are ready to do business again its you they will come to first.

This article is the property of the author and may only be reproduced in its original form.

John Sheridan is a professional proofreader of hard copy items and website copy. He also writes web copy and occasionally accepts small copy-editing assignments. He can be contacted via: http://www.textcorrect.co.uk

4 Miscellaneous Email Marketing Advices
Spread the Word Get others to sign up for your mailing lists with their consent. Spread the word about your mailing list through word of mouth. The beauty in this is that the list of emails will be self-screened and the database will only contain the people who are interested in your offers. Make sure you have their consent beforehand. You don...

Bulk Email Marketing
It is possible to make money with bulk email marketing, but you must know how to do it properly without spamming. It can be done in four easy steps, though the first step is the most critical and the least easy. All are achievable, however, without a great deal of effort. You must conform to all applicable SPAM laws; the penalties are severe.The f...

Targeted Email Marketing - 4 Keys to Get Started With Email Marketing
Email marketing has become one of the very important means of promoting a website. It is a very commonly used way of promoting a website nowadays. Never before was email marketing as important to the internet marketers as it is today. If you want to go for email marketing campaigns, you should plan them properly so that you can get the maximum bene...

Email Marketing - Website Advertising Mistakes to Avoid
Email marketing is one of the most affordable (and fastest) ways to get the word out about your company, services and/or products. Unfortunately, far too many businesses dont take the time to develop the same streamlined professional campaign they would if using a traditional marketing plan.Whether utilizing todays high-tech internet services as a...

Easy To Do Email Marketing
When you are ready to do email marketing you will want an email marketing strategy. Part of that strategy is to figure out what you want to market through your emails. Permission-based email marketing is a powerful way to connect with people and bond so they will want the products and services you offer.Email Marketing StrategyDefine your topic o...

HTML Email Newsletters A How To Guide To Creating Them
What is an email newsletter? An email newsletter is kind of like a regular newspaper but it delivers news directly to our email electronically. These newsletters arent just the news. Email newsletters are available for just about every kind information.Most companies have an email sign up for their email newsletter that allows them to send you upda...

Direct Email Marketing - Is it Worth Trying?
As you go about developing a marketing plan for your Net based business enterprise (or, for that matter, for a venture that exists in the brick and mortar world) you will want to make certain that you consider all of your promotional alternatives. In this regard, you will want to consider frankly the value of direct email marketing. There are a n...