The Significance and Benefits of Email Marketing

There is no dismissing the fact that e-mail, also known as electronic mail, is an indispensable medium of marketing on the internet.

Internet as whole has a wide marketing area because of the fact that it is available high and wide throughout the world. This makes it accessible to almost every country and eventually to the people in those countries. E-mails are very techno-savvy and also very effective and fast. This is the reason that we can now see e-mails developing as an indispensable media of marketing.

Over the years individuals and businesses have started realizing the advantages of e-mail marketing. E-mail marketing carries a lot of advantages along with it. Some of the benefits include:

Speed:

This is the main factor as to why e-mail marketing is considered advantageous over other medias of marketing. E-mail marketing along with it brings the advantage of high speed. E-mail marketing has a very high speed of information transfer. It just takes a second for the person to transfer information from his working place to the internet, where anyone can view it worldwide.

Reach:

Another factor as to why e-mail marketing is considered a good option is because of the fact that it has a better reach to the people worldwide than other medias of marketing. E-mail marketing knows no boundaries and this helps people to continue to conduct their marketing work on a large scale. The higher reach of e-mail marketing attracts more people towards it and thereby assists the whole marketing process.

Inexpensive:

E-mail marketing is comparatively cheaper than that of some other medias of marketing. Individuals and businesses do not have to incur any special or extra cost to market their product or point of view. Being inexpensive, it suits many and thereby a lot of people resort to e-mail marketing for a large part of their online marketing efforts.

Effective:

E-mail marketing is very effective and a very popular form of marketing. The reason being, that they are very techno-savvy, very fast and still pretty cost effective. This whole package makes e-mail marketing very cheap and pretty attractive. This is the reason that e-mail marketing is effective and thus more approachable.

Personalized marketing:

E-mail marketing avails the opportunity to conduct personalized marketing. In this, people can send e-mails only to people whom they think would be interested in the topic of the message.

Thus we see why and how e-mail marketing has turned out to be an indispensable tool in marketing.

6 Eye Grabbing Subject Lines

This article will give you some tips on how to get your email message open.

Your subject lines plays a crucial role in any email campaign ads whether you're using safelists, autoresponders, ezine solo ads or any opt-in list where email is involved. Your subject line will make or break your return on your investment so make sure you get their attention first.

Here are six headlines that have worked for me in the past which I'm sure will work for you too. The technology will always change but peoples desire to succeed and curiousity will not.

1. Promote Your URL Here - Free!

For whatever reasons, I've had so much success using this subject line when promoting free classified sites, safelists, and those viral ad boards.

2. Hi, My name is Paul

This works simply because it raises prospects curiosity. I'm always a sucker for this subject line. Who's this Paul anyway? I've had succeess with this using ezine solo ads.

3. I need your help, please?

There's something about being a human, always wanting to help another human being, It's hard to explain, it just works.

4. Bob, I haven't received your shipping address yet.

What! my shipping address? why do you need my shipping address for. This particular subject line really piqued my interest. If you are sending post cards to your members or prospects, this will improve your sales especially if you personalize it.

5. How my site got listed #1 on Google, for free!

This one made several sales from Trafficswarm traffic exchange program when I was promoting an affiliate program about search engine e-book. Even made more sales with ezine solo ads using the same subject line.

6. Paul, Please accept my sincerest apology.

When I saw this subject line from an email, my first reaction was, "who/why/what are you sorry about?...huh?" Exactly it got my attention and my curiosity. The sender was apologizing for not sending that email sooner which was about a new traffic exchange program. Good grief.

In conclusion, make your subject line so compelling that it's almost irresistible for your prospects not to open the email message. If you can hypnotize your readers with cleaver subject lines, you are half way to making a sale. Also when people can recognize where that email message came from, that will help getting your email message open as well. Don't use fake names, use your real name instead.

Of course, I am not recommending that you use any of these headlines if they are not true in relation to the content of the e-mail message. If you rely on deception in e-mail marketing, all you will do is tarnish your reputation
and your credibility.

Always collect an email address

The power of collecting an email address is amazing. As I mentioned in a prior article, you can expect between 1 and 10 percent of visitors to make a purchase on their initial visit to your website (conversion rate) and between 10 and 33 percent to give you their email address (signup rate).

Often visitors weren’t intending to buy any product but were after more information on your subject. Studies show it often takes 7 communications before a customer will buy a product. Believe me, after selling websites, it’s very rare to get a ‘yes’ on the first visit. Websites can be quite complex so maybe it’s not the best example but people just need more information and confidence before they’re ready to buy.

We need to offer the customer an awesome product that they simply can’t say no to for them to give us their email. Often people have no intention of handing out their email address but a careful planned report or mini-course that is instantly delivered to them is often incentive enough for them to build that bridge.

The method of collecting email addresses is called an autoresponder. That is, a database that stores names and email addresses and can send out pre-programmed email addresses to recipients. These can be customised and sent instantly, 1 day, 5 days and anywhere up to 10 years after the initial email was collected. Very powerful and effective.

Third party autoresponders that sit on a separate server are the most effective and you can generate your own signup form to place on your website.

You can also send an email to your database at any time. Let’s look at an example of the power of an email database. Let’s say you attract 200 visitors each day (easily possible) and have a signup rate of 15%, so that’s 30 email addresses a day, and after a year you have 10 950. If you mailout a promotion for a course you have created that costs $97 and just 3% of your list signs up (quite reasonable), that’s an income of $31 864.50 just from one mailout.

This profit is realised over a few days and a great example of the power of a distribution list and a value-adding product. So make sure you ask for that email address. Our goal is to add value for our customers so we need to work out what information will be useful to them and make it available. The easiest way to do that is via email.

Email Stationery

Email Stationery is a new concept meant only for electronic mailing. The letters that are sent by email are generally written on plain canvas. To make them more effective and fun to read, stationery for emails is being used nowadays. Once installed, this Email Stationery becomes part of your virtual letter. It is used both for personal and business emails.

Using Email Stationery renders a personal touch to the message. For business emails, using stationery gives it a professional impact, especially if it contains the logo, address, signature and such details. Even business cards are being designed for electronic use to be sent via computer.

Whatever Email Stationery a business is using, it should match with its printed one so as to not to confuse the recipients. When sending personal emails, there are lots of colorful designs available for different occasions. You could send a different one each time, but try to keep a signature, symbol, background or clipart constant in each email so that the recipient knows immediately it is from you.

Email Stationery design is more flexible than paper stationery. One could even have animation. When designing the Email Stationery, select the background first. It can be in any color and design. It could even be one of your favorite pictures. But carefully select the background, so it does not hamper in reading the text clearly. Around the text area, you could add some clipart and borders to give it even better visual impact. Finally, you should select the typefaces and font colors that go best with the designed email layout.

If you find it difficult to design your own Email Stationery, there are free ready-made downloads also available on the Internet. They are generally supported on Outlook, Outlook Express and Incredimail emailing software. Other email packages like Yahoo and Hotmail propagate the use of their own stationery.

Most of the email stationeries can be viewed in the IE browser and not in Netscape. These Email Stationery files are stored as HTML (Hypertext Markup Language Files) within the computer. For professional-looking Email Stationery, it is advisable to seek help from a designer.

Consumer Mailings

One of the best ways to remind your customer about you and what you do for them is to keep them on a consumer mailing list. This is one of the best ways to maintain return customers.

Always ask a customer right before they check out if they want to be added to the consumer mailing list. On internet websites it is best just to have a box that the customer can check if they choose to be on the list. The less information that they have to fill out the better, too much blanks to fill out will cause them to decide not go through with the consumer mailing list.

Don’t inundate the consumer with mailings once they are on that list. It gets annoying for the customer and costly for you, the business owner. Keeping mailings down to monthly occurrences will keep you fresh in their minds and the most likely source that they will turn to when they need to buy more of a product that you have. Also consider the fact that they may hold on to your newsletter or advertisement for future reference. This is a great opportunity for you to offer incentives to the consumer that you are targeting in these consumer mailings.

When sending out mailing lists make sure that it is efficient for you. Use programs that are designed to make sending out consumer mailing lists as efficient as possible. If you choose not to use a program have the names of your consumers organized so that who ever in your company is in charge of the mailing is sending out the correspondence it doesn’t take them a lot of time.

Consumer mailing lists should be practical and efficient for both you and your customer. Keeping them to an appropriate limit and making sure that they are relevant to matters concerning your company will keep your customers focused on what you want them to know. If you keep your newsletter too long then it will be boring for them to keep reading it when they have other matters that they need to tend to.

Taking steps to increase the efficiency of your consumer mailing list will aid your company’s growth potential and bring more business your way by keeping you in the forefront of your costumer’s mind. Consumer mailings are one of the most primary tools that your company can use in its business ventures. Whether the consumer mailings are via regular mail or via email your company will nonetheless benefit greatly from it.

Autoresponder Services Improve Your Profits

Perhaps you, like me, have web hosting that includes, free of any extra charge, unlimited autoresponders. That being the case, you might be inclined to balk at any suggestion to start paying for them.

Recently, however, I made the switch to paying a monthly fee for unlimited autoresponders. Am I rich (with money to burn)? Have I lost my mind?

Actually, I consider this move to paid autoresponders to be a wise decision. Here are some reasons why you might want to pay for an autoresponder service.

1. Sequential Autoresponders: Although many web hosts offer unlimited autoresponders, each autoresponder is only capable of sending one response. Building business relationships with paid autoresponder services can thus increase your sales.

2. Tracking Capabilities: The autoresponders that come with your web host don't have built-in tracking capabilities. Tracking customer response with paid autoresponder services can lead to more effective advertising campaigns.

3. Deliverability: A very large number of your newsletter subscribers are not getting your newsletter if it is sent using your web host's mailing list program. Improving newsletter delivery with paid autoresponder services will improve your bottom line.

4. Legal Protection: Since the e-mails you send are hosted on the autoresponder service's servers, you are insulated from false accusations of sending spam (unsolicited commercial e-mail). Protect yourself legally with paid autoresponder services.

You could also consider buying an autoresponder program (or script) that will allow you to run unlimited, sequential autoresponders from your websites. However, they can be expensive, require some technical skill, and still have some disadvantages.

For example, since you are hosting your own autoresponders, you might still have issues with deliverability and legal protection.

Paid autoresponder services, with their many advantages over other autoresponder systems, can increase your business profits.

Email Miscommunication is Too Easy!

We misinterpret, filter, or change 70% to 90% of what we hear. Communicating messages clearly, and in a format that the receiver will understand, is difficult. It’s easy to miscommunicate. By watching which words you choose, your message will be more clearly communicated.

Cause

Why does all this confusion occur? One of the many reasons is that people suffer from information overload. They simply can’t process everything they receive via email – nor do they really want to.

As much as you would like them to, recipients of your email messages don’t give every message they receive from you their undivided attention. In reality, people read email quickly; they do other tasks while they read email (such as talking on the telephone); and they ignore messages altogether.

Even under the best conditions, it’s easy for the information you send to become distorted. You don’t want to complicate matters by sending email messages loaded with technical terms or industry-specific jargon that would require the reader to decipher the language before he/she can even begin to use the data.

Example

Here’s an example of how easy it is to miscommunicate. Even when people are saying the exact same things, they can say them in such a way that they cannot understand each other. Have you ever done this?

Directions:

The following are familiar sayings you have heard many times. However, the wording in this example is different. Can you re-phrase these statements using more familiar language?

1. Compute not your immature gallinaceans prior to their being produced.

2. Pulchritude does not extend below the surface of the derma.

3. You cannot estimate the value of the contents of a bound, printed narrative from its exterior vesture.

4. One may address a member of the Equidea family toward aqueous liquid, but one is incapable of compelling him to quaff.

Solutions

1. Don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched.

2. Beauty is only skin deep.

3. You can’t judge a book by its cover.

4. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.

By using language that’s easy to understand, you’ll leave a positive impression on those around you – customers, staff, and coworkers.