Importance of Email Marketing

Good afternoon, readers. With all the depressing talk
about the economy, I thought it would be a good idea to
discuss the things you can do to generate revenue with
minimal costs and effort.

As I said last week, during tough times most companies will
freeze their spending, especially in their marketing
efforts. This means they are taking an invisibility pill
for several months, so now is the time for a smart marketer
to market stronger than ever before.

But marketing stronger does not mean spending more money.

For instance, use email marketing instead of direct mail.
Save money on the printing of postcards, letters and
brochures. Eliminate postage and preparation of materials
for bulk mail.

Effectiveness of your email marketing is easily measured
while direct mail is not. If someone receives your brochure
in the mail, they may never even open it. This means you are
paying to print the piece and mail the piece and the vast
majority of the recipients will toss it in the garbage. You
are flushing money down the toilet. Save yourself the
trouble, just write me a check instead!

Seriously, you will never know if someone opened and read
your direct mail piece or forwarded it to another person to
read unless they respond to your call to action.

With email, you know who opened it, you know who forwarded
it, and you know who clicked through on your call to your
action link. You can test your headlines and graphics with
different pieces for zero incremental cost, too.

This single move away from direct mail to direct email can
save you money and make you money at the same time.

So many of the web sites I see do not have a subscribe form
on their home page or anywhere else on their site.

Big mistake.

You need to capture the first name and email address of
every visitor to your site. This list becomes your life
blood. It is easier to market to someone who has expressed
an interest in you by visiting your site. Visiting is only
the first prospect qualifier. When they subscribe, they are
inviting you to send them more information. This means on a
scale of 1 to 10, that they are moving up the scale of
importance to you. They want you to sell them something
eventually.

I also see many sites that do have a subscribe form but
never or rarely communicate with their list. This is
another huge mistake. If you subscribed to a new magazine
and did not get anything for the first 6 months, would you
ever remember why you subscribed?

You need to be reaching out to your lists constantly
enforcing the value of your relationship. When people begin
to think of you as a friend or confidant then it is easy to
sell them something.

So subscribe form is a must.

Regular email campaigns are a must.

An autoresponder with a series of pre-written emails is
also required. You don't have the time to personally
welcome each and every new subscriber to your list. You
need a series of communications that works at building that
relationship and your credibility and value.

Most people do not do this or they make the mistake of
writing the series of communications themselves. They are
frequently too close to their site and business to
understand what they should say and how they should say it.
An outside perspective is important and adds value.

So an autoresponder series is important, too. A good series
of communications for 10-26 weeks can put your lead
generation and sales on auto-pilot.

Don't believe me?

Then hire me to help you.

All my best,

Steven

P.S.: Recommended email marketing tools may be found here:

http://www.emailmarketingassistance.com