How? It’s simple. When you send email newsletters, promotions or announcements to your customers and prospects you begin a conversation with them. They don’t have to be ready to buy your product or service (or to join or donate if you are an association) but they can gain from your communication with them. When they are ready, you are the trusted and comfortable friend that they will look to.
The cost of this dialog is significantly lower than other vehicle – including sales calls, direct mail and trade-shows. Self-service, web-based email marketing solutions can cost less than a penny per contact. When you add email marketing to your marketing mix, you can use your higher cost sales team or other marketing efforts to focus on the customers and prospects that need their attention, while email keeps you in front of everyone else.
There’s more. Email marketing offers the quickest time to market and fastest results of any marketing vehicle. You can create and send an email in minutes and realize 90% of your results in 48 hours! You can even see who clicked on each link in your email, and follow up with phone calls or send additional, targeted emails based on your response.
There are three keys to implementing an inexpensive and effective email marketing strategy:
Build your email database – make it a policy to collect email addresses from everyone, everywhere:
- Trade shows: Ask booth visitors for their email address and permission to send newsletters and announcements.
- At your retail store: Include email addresses in your mailing list book.
- Sales, support and telemarketing calls: Add email address and permission requests in your sales/service calls and telesales scripts.
- Your website: Add a “join my list” signup and collect valuable information from site visitors.
Get Permission – and keep it! It is a privilege to provide prospects and customers with timely and relevant information. Tell your customers what they will receive, and give them an opportunity to opt-out or unsubscribe in every email.
Use a (do-it-yourself) service – You’ll be surprised at how inexpensive and easy email marketing can be. Find a provider who handles list management and hygiene, including website signup, bounce-back handling, subscribe/unsubscribe and interest selections. The best ones provide customizable templates and instant reports on your campaign results. Give the service a test drive. It should be intuitive and easy-to-use.
Most importantly, start today! Add email to your marketing mix and start an ongoing dialog with customers, leads and site visitors. You’ll keep your business in front of them – and they will think of you when they are ready to act.
Article provided by Constant Contact.
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