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By Deanna Mascle
Permission-based email marketing is a tremendously successful
marketing tool. How can it not be when you are sending your
carefully crafted messages to an audience already interested
in
your topic?
Email marketing is just what it sounds like -- marketing
messages you send through email. It is important to be clear
up
front that this is not spam email messages sent to a huge list
you bought, borrowed, or begged from another source.
Effective, targeted email marketing messages are sent to a
carefully controlled list that you gathered. Permission-based
email marketing means that the people on your list requested
that you send them information. If you are smart you will even
ask them to confirm before adding them to the list.
I am sure you can see the tremendous benefits to having such a
list. Rather than waiting for potential customers to come to
you or notice your new product then you can contact them
directly.
However there are some hurdles you must cross before you can
begin your email marketing campaign.
First you will need a system to manage your email marketing
subscribers and mailings. You are essentially looking for an
autoresponder or bulk email management program. You can find
free tools, cheap tools, and expensive tools. You can buy a
system and run it yourself or you can pay someone else to run
it for you. I opted for a monthly service after running my own
software for a while. I run a lot of lists and it is well
worth
it to me to pay someone else to handle maintenance.
Second you will need to start gathering names. As I mentioned
before, the only way to run an effective email marketing
campaign is to be permission-based. So how do you get people
to
ask you to send them sales messages? Well, usually you don't
put
it that way of course. Instead concentrate on giving something
of value in return for their contact information. What can you
give them?
~ Newsletter
~ Tutorial
~ Special report
~ Free tool
~ Discount
~ Contest prize
Third, you will need to create your messages. This can simply
be an initial message that delivers as promised with a few
follow-ups and/or sporadic updates or you can follow up with
regular messages. If you intend to regularly mail your
audience
then you need to carefully balance length, content and timing.
If you abuse your list by sending sales messages every day
people will soon unsubscribe however if you continue to offer
something of value in addition to those sales messages then
you
will likely retain a substantial number.
Email marketing offers many benefits. First, it is low-cost.
It
can be free but often that will cost you in time and
effectiveness, however even paid services will cost you much
less than most paid advertising efforts. Second, it is a soft
vs. hard sell. Third, you are prequalifying your audience for
your message so they should be much more receptive to your
sales pitch. Finally, it can be as easy as you want it to be.
You can set up a special report from information you already
have and plug in some sales pitch follow up messages then sit
back and watch your sales grow.
Email marketing can give you a great return for a small
investment of time and money.
About The Author: Experienced webmaster Deanna Mascle is glad
to offer answers about
answersaboutinternetmarketing.com
and answersaboutinternetpromotion.com
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