Many small-business owners cringe at the thought of email marketing. They think: I already get too many emails … Isn’t that spamming? … Will I get in trouble for that? … Won’t people be annoyed?

Personally, I don’t mind receiving something I’ve signed up for. I may delete it if I don’t have time to read it, but at least I know that another email will be coming my way soon enough.

So relax, because not only is this marketing method legal (when you follow best practices), it’s also effective and fun. Let’s consider how email marketing can help you to increase sales.

Benefits of Email Marketing

• Cost effective – Achieve a solid ROI considering you can produce your own emails in-house using cheap tools, DIY templates and wizards
• Build relationships – starting a dialogue with your target market can offer new business ideas, improve service or product quality, bring attention to weaknesses
• Build brand consciousness – get people used to seeing your logo, your ads, your face, your identity
• Increase website visits – emails are a great way to pique a person’s interest and direct them to your website, forum, blog, store, whatever
• Keep custumers informed – they will feel priveleged to be in the know about discounts, events, news, and other valuable information

Harvest Emails with a Professional Email Marketing Policy

There are both reputable and shady ways to get email addresses. The safest way to collect emails is to use an opt-in form on your website. A person opts-in (in effect saying, yes! send me emails!) and then confirms their subscription through a link in their email inbox.

Other ways of getting email addresses include purchasing or renting a list, and emailing people asking if they’d like to receive emails in the future. Many people don’t like receiving these unsolicited emails and will consider them spam. Use good judgement and tread wisely.

You should always have an opt-out or unsubscribe option available in your emails. This is in case someone decides they don’t wish to receive any more correspondence, or if they’ve received an email in error.

Plan to Be Consistent and Informative

In order to have a consistent and productive email marketing plan, list the topics you’d like to cover. Decide with what frequency you will be corresponding with your contacts. Schedule everything out — some businesses email once a month, others more freqently. You may want your emails to coincide with the seasons or sales cycles.

What can you write about? Write about new products, new services, discounts, customer stories, educational articles, contests, FAQs, etc. The possibilities are endless. Elicit  ideas from your staff members, other business owners, and from customers themselves.

Maximize Your Design and Optimize Your Content

It is a good idea to hire a professional web or graphic designer to create a customized template just for you. This is the best, most professional way to go. He or she will be able to ensure that your email newsletter will look good in the most email clients.

Make sure your newsletter is not so wide that it’s hard to read from an email inbox. Also, your most important content would be towards the top, so that no one has to scroll down to see it. For this reason, some list links to the newsletter’s topics at the top of the email.

Use eye catching graphics (note: not loud, flashy, tacky graphics) and make sure your header and footer blend well with your company’s brand image. Include your contact info and liberal links to your site.

Make sure your newsletter title is catchy and descriptive. Your email ‘subject’ and ‘from’ email address should be instantly recognizable by your readers. Use keywords that your target market would be searching for and interested in. Body copy is usually scanned quickly, so keep it divided up into short chunks or bullet points.

Partner with a Powerful Email Marketing Service

There are tons of email newsletter services - Constant Contact, Vertical Response, Mailchimp, and the list goes on. Find the one that’s right for you. Some incorporate free, editable email templates. Some offer the option to send HTML and/or text-only emails. Some do surveys and even direct-mail postcards as well. 

Definitely look for one that keeps track of your collected email addresses and newsletter campaign stats. Search for one that meets all your needs, because it’s probably out there.

Work to Meet Your Marketing & Sales Goals

Set concrete goals you’d like to achieve, be it more web visits, more phone calls, increased sales, etc. And after each email is sent out, monitor your stats using your email newsletterprogram. This valuable information will help you to make adjustments to your design or content.

For example, I noticed that one newsletter was not getting many click-thrus to the company’s website. I realized that by sprinkling additional, descriptive hyperlinks throughout the newsletter, people had moreoptions of interest to click on. And with that, the click-through rate increased considerably, as did product sales.

These tips should get started marketing via email.

Is your company already successfully marketing via email? Talk to me!

Tags: email marketing, email newsletters

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 at 8:21 am and is filed under Marketing, Website Development & Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.