The
world wide web is being crushed under the weight of spam
which is making the life of the legitimate internet marketing
manager extremely difficult. However, if all the basic rules
of good behaviour, and not least, national and international
anti-spam laws, are followed, then the web based business
which depends on email to disseminate its message will continue
to thrive and expand.
Potential customers will
now, quite rightly, object to receiving unsolicited emails
form an organisation that they may not have heard of. Indeed,
they will also probably just as quickly bin emails from
firms that they do know, but to whom they have not given
permission to email them. Once customers have given permission
for this form of marketing, they are much more likely to
be receptive to the message.
So, the first rule of effective
email marketing is get the permission of the customer, preferably
using a double opt-in technique (requires the user to click
on a link in an email which is sent immediately on completion
of a registration from).
Protecting
Your List: Once you have received permission
you can start building the all important list. This list
will become a vital asset of your business. However, the
problems don't end with the list. You must be aware that
a third or more of email users change their email address
every year, in an attempt to escape spam. This means that
a large proportion of your list will go out of date every
year. It is important that you take the appropriate steps
to ensure that these customers register their new addresses
with you. Using a good listserver will help with this problem,
but you must choose the right one.
Frequency:
How often should you send-out your email newsletter? The
answer depends on a combination of how much time you are
able to devote to the task and your content. It is no good
promising a weekly newsletter if you cannot find the time
to generate a new message every 7 days! Start modestly and
plan to increase the frequency as the value of your newsletter
begins to be appreciated.
Writing E-Mail Promotional
Copy:
There are many excellent books on how to write direct email
copy. Writing a regular email newsletter is not like composing
a formal letter to a business associate. Your style needs
to be relaxed and relatively informal - make it more like
speech. This less formal style is easier to read quickly
on screen (remember that most of the time that is where
is will be read).
Content:
It goes without saying that if your email newsletter does
not contain valuable and interesting content, your subscribers
will soon click the 'unsubscribe' link and you will have
lost them.
Nowadays email newsletters
are generally kept as brief as possible, but they will contain
links to your website to take the reader to the kernal of
the subject. You came to the page that you are reading now
by clicking on a link from a promotional email from Software
Options. You can then use your website to hold as much detail
as necessary about the subject, including all the incentives
to buy the product or service.
HTML
or Plain Text:
Once the message has been written you will need to decide
whether the email is to be sent out as plain text or as
HTML. While everyone can read text emails it is thought
that over 95% of Internet users can read HTML email. HTML
allows you to format your newsletter with attractive fonts
and graphics. Of course it is the content that conveys the
message, but it it well known that an attractive layout
is more likely to keep the reader's attention and make the
vital 'click' to your website.
Subject Line:
Perhaps the most important part of your email is the subject
line. This is the bit that the recipient sees when when
looking at an Inbox full of messages. You must decide which
words will make the reader open the newsletter instead of
deleting it. You must also ensure that your email actually
reaches the recipient's Inbox and is not filtered-out by
spam prevention measures.
Tracking the Effectiveness:
Once the email goes out it is important to be able to track
how many are read - i.e. how many click-throughs there are
to your website. Link tracking systems have the capability
of tracking not only the number of click-throughs, but also
the email addresses of the recipients who clicked on the
links. Of course, you can do this on your own website by
tracking the number of registered users that go to a certain
page. This whole business of tracking can be developed to
keep a record of individual user's preferences, which will
eventually enable you to specifically target them with particular
goods or services.
How Can You Ensure
That Your Email Marketing Is A Success?:
There are a number of key issues which are vital when considering
an email newsletter campaign. These are listed below purely
as bullet points. Each one will be developed at a future
occasion:
- Define your
target market
- Make sure
that your web site is ready
- Build your
own list
- Establish
a permission policy
- Choose outside
lists carefully
- Develop
a compelling offer
- Consider
employing professional copy writers
- Test, test
and test again
- Measure
your results
- Use email
to build relationships and trust
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Registering
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please register your name and email address, together with
a note of your specific interest, and we will ensure that
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we will not disclose your name of email address to any third
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