The Magic of Email Marketing - Selling To People Who Want To Buy
With all the fancy new technologies that we have available today for online marketing, it's amazing that the number one marketing channel is still e-mail. Sure, people are getting more sophisticated with using videos, RSS feeds, podcasts, postcards and any number of other creative methods to get people's attention, but it ultimately comes down to having somebody read an e-mail message.
E-mail has a lot of things going for it. For one, it's cheap. Even if you get a fairly sophisticated e-mail delivery solution it will run you about 20 bucks a month. And that's the kind of system that has a high likelihood of getting your e-mail delivered and helping you get good response rates.
For people on the receiving end of e-mails that seem like junk, you get to see how e-mail marketing is done poorly. That's not the example you want to follow. Instead you want to follow the guidelines of permission-based e-mail marketing.
In permission based e-mail marketing you get permission from individuals to send them e-mail - rather self-explanatory, actually. It's the permission getting part that trips people up. The first step is to have some way for people to subscribe to your e-mail list. This is typically through a form on your website where people can request more information, or an e-mail address that they can send a blank e-mail message to that will automatically subscribe them to a particular e-mail list.
The next step is to have your system automatically send a "confirmation e-mail" to that person to make sure that it was them using their e-mail address to sign up for the list. This is an important step, especially if you're offering some sort of bonus or premium for people who sign up. There are unscrupulous individuals who will fake e-mail address just to get some freebie that they thought they would get after signing up. So it's important to not deliver your bonuses until after a subscriber has confirmed.
Once somebody has given you their permission to send an e-mail you need to take that responsibility very seriously. In all likelihood they signed up for your list to get useful information from you. Be sure and deliver that information with a minimum of marketing hype. After three or four e-mail messages spread over the course of a least a week, you can begin to deliver your marketing messages. A good rule of thumb is to send out one marketing offer for every three or four messages that you send that have just "pure content".
"Pure content" is information that is useful for your subscribers does not require them to give you anything in return. They get to keep their credit card in their wallet and in return you build up their loyalty.
This seems like a fairly simple system, but it's amazing how many people and businesses get it wrong. So if you are looking at building a stronger relationship with your customers definitely take a look at using e-mail to build that relationship and ultimately make more money for your business.
E-mail has a lot of things going for it. For one, it's cheap. Even if you get a fairly sophisticated e-mail delivery solution it will run you about 20 bucks a month. And that's the kind of system that has a high likelihood of getting your e-mail delivered and helping you get good response rates.
For people on the receiving end of e-mails that seem like junk, you get to see how e-mail marketing is done poorly. That's not the example you want to follow. Instead you want to follow the guidelines of permission-based e-mail marketing.
In permission based e-mail marketing you get permission from individuals to send them e-mail - rather self-explanatory, actually. It's the permission getting part that trips people up. The first step is to have some way for people to subscribe to your e-mail list. This is typically through a form on your website where people can request more information, or an e-mail address that they can send a blank e-mail message to that will automatically subscribe them to a particular e-mail list.
The next step is to have your system automatically send a "confirmation e-mail" to that person to make sure that it was them using their e-mail address to sign up for the list. This is an important step, especially if you're offering some sort of bonus or premium for people who sign up. There are unscrupulous individuals who will fake e-mail address just to get some freebie that they thought they would get after signing up. So it's important to not deliver your bonuses until after a subscriber has confirmed.
Once somebody has given you their permission to send an e-mail you need to take that responsibility very seriously. In all likelihood they signed up for your list to get useful information from you. Be sure and deliver that information with a minimum of marketing hype. After three or four e-mail messages spread over the course of a least a week, you can begin to deliver your marketing messages. A good rule of thumb is to send out one marketing offer for every three or four messages that you send that have just "pure content".
"Pure content" is information that is useful for your subscribers does not require them to give you anything in return. They get to keep their credit card in their wallet and in return you build up their loyalty.
This seems like a fairly simple system, but it's amazing how many people and businesses get it wrong. So if you are looking at building a stronger relationship with your customers definitely take a look at using e-mail to build that relationship and ultimately make more money for your business.
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