Internet Marketing

Email Marketing

If you have had an email address for any length of time, you will already be familiar with what many people refer to as "email marketing".

I am not referring to the endless piles of Spam mail that appears in all of our mail boxes each day - this section will not teach you how to Spam, nor will it encourage you to send Spam emails.

It's about permission marketing. That's where somebody visits your site, provides you with their contact information and allows you send them an occasional email about a subject, product or service that they are interested in.

Before I explain a few ways in which you can do this, it's important to understand that you need a little bit more than a standard email client such as Outlook or Eudora in order to mail effectively.

That's because most email clients can only send email in a limited fashion.

If I used Outlook to send mail to 100 people, I would either have to send 100 separate emails, or use the "cc" or "bcc" function to send the same message to all 100 people.

If you're not familiar with the functions, "cc" just means copy and "BCC" means blind copy.

The disadvantage of sending mail in this way is that only the first person on the mailing list would be named. Everybody else would get an exact copy of the mail and everyone on the list would be visible to everybody that the mail was sent to, as you will see in the screenshot below;

Using the "BCC" function isn't much better. Although nobody is able to see the list of recipients, all of the mails will appear to be addressed to the wrong person - the first person on the list!

Another thing to bear in mind about addressing emails using the cc function, is that many people now use Spam filters and Spam filters will often block mail that is not directly addressed to the recipient.

Also, it's not possible to personalise each of the emails that you send - and this is an important consideration that we'll cover next.

Personalising Emails

Whenever you communicate with a client or a potential client, it's important to make the right impression, by personally addressing whoever you are writing to.

The only way to achieve this is by using a function similar to a mail merge in a word processor, so that you can send the same message to everybody, but include their own name and perhaps other details in other areas of the mail.

For example, I might want to write to 1000 companies, including the company name and an individual's name in the mail. In addition, I will want to address each email individually so that it looks like I sat down and penned them a message unique to them.

Normal email software doesn't allow that, so a special solution is required and that means using software. (If the thought of "software" frightens you, don't worry - it's easy to use).

Over the years, I have tried different software programs with differing results. They all do the job, but some do it much more effectively than others.

The system I use is from Aweber, and they've agreed to let me offer my readers a free test drive of their system.

This really is the most cost effective mail marketing system you'll find.  I use it on this and many of my other sites. For the money, it's just simply not worth trying to build your own.

Correct Email Marketing

We have already touched on the subject of Spam and it's important for you to know that I only promote valid and acceptable marketing methods on this site. If you are looking for bulk Spam mailing capabilities, nothing you find on this site will help you.

Responsible marketing starts with your aims and desires for your business.

You have to first identify your target audience, then get that audience to your web site and then get the visitors to take some action.

That action usually means subscribing to your mailing list - but even if they do, what are you going to send them for their trouble?

Unless it's something useful, nobody will subscribe to your list. Even if what you are providing is extremely useful, you are still unlikely to get subscribers unless you effective SELL the benefits of joining your mailing list to them.

This means producing some convincing text that encourages them to join your site. In short, you need to gain the trust and the respect of your visitors.

How you do that is up to you - there is no standard model and how successful you are will largely depend on what you are offering, who you are offering it to and of course, how convincing you are in letting them know that the information will benefit them.

Once people have joined your mailing list, you need to make sure that you treat their personal information with respect. That means never selling it or renting it to other companies.