Email Marketing

In this day and age Email Marketing has become an extremely valuable tool for small companies who are trying to attract new business. Email Marketing is fast, cheap and if done correctly can bring in serious business.

This efficient method of direct marketing allows companies to send the right kind of product or promotion to the correct audience increasing the chance of new business. The beauty of email campaigns is the ability to link to your website from the email, making it easier for the potential client to find what you are marketing as you can link to the actual product/offer.

Measuring Success
Statistics are a bonus when it comes to email marketing as you can determine how many people opened the email, clicked through to your website and even which link on the email was clicked and how many times. If you are looking for instant results and to measure return on investment, e-marketing is the tool for you.

Don't cut corners
Email campaigns must be completed in the correct way as any material sent without the basics in mind can result in being labeled as spam and you could end up being blacklisted. One important way to avoid being classed as a spammer is to have permission to send the email to potential clients in the first place. This is known as "opting-in" and is where potential clients fill in their details in a small form on your website as they want to receive your email marketing material.

Email content
In order to stop people unsubscribing from your email campaigns it is essential the email content is relevant to the client. It will first take trial and error to see what gets people excited and prompts them to click on links or even make a purchase, so referring back to previous campaign statistics is important.

It is important to make your email attractive to the eye but don't overdo it and take the attention away from the message. Make sure the message is clear but don't use a mass amount of text as people will lose interest. I find it useful to just keep the message simple and then users can click through to the website to read more detail if they choose.

When it comes to the subject line, try to stay clear of spam words like "Offer" and "Deal" as these are a sure way to land your email message in the junk folder, the joys!

Buying Lists
When it comes to buying email address lists I would stay well away as this is a recipe for disaster. Basically you are buying a list that many other mailers will have purchased and the chances are it will be a spam list  where people have not opted in to receive email content.

To be successful in email marketing it is key to home grow you email contacts using an opt-in system on your website. This way your audience want to receive your marketing material so are already interested and the chances of gaining new business becomes alot higher, and on the plus side the email contact list did not cost you a penny.