Email Marketing - Permission Based Marketing

Email has been called the “killer app” of the Internet. Without doubt it's one of the most powerful online marketing tools available to you. It is also the most misused online marketing tool! So use with caution.

The appeal of email marketing lies in the fact that it is exceedingly cost effective; has immediacy; can be personalised for one-to-one communication; is readily measured; and allows marketers to execute online promotions with unparallel precision.

Now the downside. One word says it all - SPAM.

You probably have strong views about all the SPAM (unsolicited junk email) that fills your email inbox. So whatever you do, don’t become a spammer yourself, either wittingly or unwittingly. If you do, you’ll alienate your audience and undermine the integrity of your brand.

The proper use of email as a marketing tool is when it is done on an opt-in basis. In other words people specifically give you permission to send them email messages (this is why it’s also called permission marketing). The power is in the hands of the message audience who retain the right to opt out anytime they wish.

With opt-in email marketing you deliver your message to the appropriate target audience and so can generate good quality traffic to your web site. High response rates are typically generated because you are sending targeted messages to people who specifically want to know more about your products/services, making them more responsive to your message.

A common form of email marketing is email newsletters or e-zines

These are a great way of staying in contact with clients by providing news and information they are interested in. Usually the newsletter contains enough information in its own right to be of use and features appropriate links back to your web site for more in depth information.

Email newsletters can be produced in plain text and/or HTML formats. HTML emails look like web pages and so provide better branding opportunities.

Traffic generated by email marketing to web sites can either be new traffic visiting for the first time or repeat traffic brought back to the site. In other words email marketing can be used as both a traffic acquisition strategy and also a traffic retention strategy.

Personally I think it is more suited to the latter and an excellent way for maintaining and building relationships with existing customers.

Email marketing is an online marketing tool most business should be using and can be done in-house. However email marketing campaigns will probably require more time and planning to execute and manage than you probably think. This is why many marketers choose to use the experience and expertise of specialist email campaign management agencies.

Having said that, many businesses do it very successfully in-house. If you plan to do it yourself basically you have a couple of options. These are to buy and use your own software or use a hosted web-based email service.

Prices for email software cover a wide range depending on the level of sophistication offered. A simple low end example is a French mailing list package called K-ML it's inexpensive but tricky to set up, has limited support & functionality. If your needs are modest it may be worth checking out. Note - if you buy cheap you'll probably end up getting frustrated by the lack of functionality.

An advantage of buying is you don't have the on-going costs of a hosted service. Despite this for many people a hosted service is by far the better option.

The advantage of such systems is they are generally very easy to use. Non-technical people can easily create email newsletters using a web browser & online templates. This means the story authors can quickly create newsletters which saves time & cost. The other BIG advantage over the many software packages is these webmail systems typically will automatically purge undeliverable emails. Also they offer varying levels of reporting so you can see how many emails got opened/read and the links clicked on.

The drawback of hosted service can be cost. Typically they charge you a set up fee and then a charge per email sent. Obviously this can add up if you have a big maillist and do frequent mailings. But then little in business is free - so as long as your email marketing generates sufficient business it's simply part of your marketing cost structure.

For small to medium size businesses a more cost effective alternative is using a service that charges per subscriber, rather than per email sent. Two good options worth checking out are Constant Contact (free 60 day trial) and IntelliContact Pro (free 15 day trial).

Also worth checking out is the Business Guide to Permission Email Marketing. This is a highly informative step by step guide that details exactly how to use email marketing to build your business. Recommended.

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