E-mail Marketing

How To Market Your Business With E-mail

E-mail marketing has become a favored method of reaching consumers among US businesses. In a survey by the Direct Marketing Association, two-thirds of companies say their sales increased in 2001 because of e-mail marketing, and sixty-three percent credit e-mail as the most effective way to retain customers.
This isn't so surprising given that e-mail is the most popular activity among Internet users. This popularity, coupled with e-mail's cost-effectiveness as a marketing vehicle, make it an important customer acquisition and retention tool.
Before looking at the various ways you can use e-mail marketing, let's examine how to make your campaigns more effective. Like other marketing methods, when using e-mail you should pay attention to some basic rules of engagement.

1. Target Your Message
Put your messages in front of people who are most likely to have an interest in your product or service. Know whom your product or service will benefit and where these people can be found.

2. Offer Value
When people visit you by way of your promotions, create an environment of value, which puts your visitors in a buying mode. That is... offer irresistible benefits, make it effortless for people to see the benefits, create urgency in people to get the benefits from your product, and make it easy to buy the benefits (your product or service).

3. Use Repetition
An integral part of successful marketing is your visibility in front of potential buyers. Therefore, it's important to realize the necessity of putting your message in front of people repeatedly.

4. Track Your Marketing Results
Another important consideration is the performance of your promotions. Tracking allows you to test your promotions and zero in on things that work. Here some ways to evaluate the results of your marketing efforts:

Six Effective Ways To Market With E-mail

By targeting your market you bring in willing buyers. With an attention to delivering value, you remove barriers that hinder sales. Through repetition you're able to demand recognition, and with performance tracking you are able to market with the greatest impact. Now you can market with gusto! Here are six very effective methods:

1. Start an Opt-In Mailing List
This is a favored method of many e-mail marketers. Those who opt-in to your list have already shown an interest and are ripe to receive your messages. Provide useful and free information people can really use, and at the same time offer services or products which cater to their needs.

2. Offer an E-mail Course
There are a couple of ways this can work. The first is to offer a free e-mail course from your site. Over the period of a week or two you set up an autoresponder to deliver your course by e-mail. Make sure your e-course provides information, which has real value to your visitor.
Alternately, you could offer a valuable freebie that requires your visitor to leave their e-mail address before claiming it. The delivery of your e-course becomes a condition of claiming the freebie.
With tactful and casual grace, you can then introduce your subscriber to your products and services within the context of the e-course. Just make sure you are enhancing the information they first sought. Overall, the idea is to create a relationship with people - a bond built on your expert status and ability to deliver truly useful information.

3. Self-Submit Ads to Ezines
You can save some money and place ads in your own hand-picked ezines. There are literally thousands of ezines looking for advertisers, and if you've got the time to browse directories such as EzineAdAuction.com or EzineLocater.com, you're bound to find many ezines that target your market.

4. Advertise in E-mail Newsletter Networks
These services let you advertise in newsletters within their network. The amount of time you'll save is worthwhile in itself, but the real value comes from being able to profile your ad for specific target groups. Some reputable networks include Opt-Influence.com, EzineAdHelper.com, PennMedia.com, SodaMail.com, and ShagMail.com.

5. Rent-a-List
You can promote your business with a rented list. Reputable companies providing this service maintain only the e-mail addresses of people who have agreed to receive commercial e-mail. Renting a list can be quite expensive since you'll pay as much as 25 cents per address, however you can get some great results with a highly targeted list. Safe list sources include BulletMail.com, HTMail.com, PostMasterDirect.com, and HipLists.com.

6. Write Articles and Get Published
Many ezine publishers and site developers are hungry for good content. Getting published in just one high-profile ezine can give you exposure in front of thousands of potential buyers.

In conclusion, e-mail is without a doubt a very potent marketing tool. It should be an integral component of your marketing plan if your goal is spectacular results. And what business doesn't want that!