Monday 31 August 2009

Email Marketing: What To Do And Not To Do

By Joseph Summers

Promoting your small online business is a challenging mission, particularly if you do not have any ideas about the best methods to use. Amidst the so called "new" marketing techniques that currently swamp the Internet, you will sometimes find yourself confused in trying to decipher which processes work most effectively and which will just waste your valuable time and effort. To be successful with your business promotion online, you need to utilize the most effective marketing tools as much as possible to attract visitors. More importantly, you should concentrate your efforts in mastering the most suitable techniques for your company.

Of course, one can put up banner ads and the like, but there is no guarantee that potential customers will see them. Worse, those buyers who trust your company may not learn of new products when they do come out. Email marketing is the way to go here.

That kind of leads in to the next area where you can improve the results you're getting. People aren't going to respond to you if you don't give them something of value. Nobody wants to just open up and email and read a sales pitch. That want something for their time. A free e-course or report or something along those lines will bring about a much better response than a sales pitch. There is plenty of time to pitch these people down the road AFTER you have gained their trust. Give them something of value first.

No spam, please

The first mistake one can make is to send unsolicited messages. This is called spamming, and is the bane of many email marketers and Internet users. This is basically the sending of advertising emails en masse to people who have not asked to be informed in such a manner. This clutters up inboxes, causes massive loads on mail servers, and worse, serves as a vehicle for computer viruses and malware for the unscrupulous or careless marketer. This will seriously reduce the popularity of ones product or service. Though there may be some who do take up the offer, most people will simply delete the message without even glancing at the subject matter. Avoid spamming at all costs.

A trickle, not a flood

Next, email marketing should not be obtrusive or too pushy, in terms of selling a product. People tend to have trust issues towards marketing via electronic means, since they have no real guarantee that what they see is what they will get. Thus, avoid hyping up the products or services too much, or they may think that it is too good to be true and end up not buying at all. Additionally, this applies to the frequency of email updates to subscribers to your marketing service. Once a day is excessive, yet once a month would not be very useful in pushing up the profit line. As a general guideline, once a week or once every two weeks should be good, except if you have a special message on limited offers. Remember not to flood inboxes, and youre good as gold.

Options for trust

It should be possible for users to unsubscribe from your email marketing service. This is often overlooked by marketers, and scares away the more Internet-savvy users. The fact tthey can opt out of your informational messages is a good foundation for trust, since they will feel that you are simply offering a service with no strings attached. Building trust in the informational phase will translate into more purchases and of course better profits later on, so take note.

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