online marketing tactics
Email Marketing Without Spamming
P.O. Box 1016
Glastonbury CT, 06033
Phone: 860.781.6028
Email Marketing Without Spamming
- What is Email Marketing
- Where Should You Begin Your Email Marketing Campaign
- What Email Marketing Services Are Available To Use
- What Are The Different Forms Of Email Marketing
- What Are The Benefits Of Email Marketing
- How To Obtain An Email Marketing List
- How To Increase Email Opens
- Newsletter Example 1 | Newsletter Example 2 | Newsletter Example 3
* Note: Newsletter Examples above are .pdf format. There were slight formatting issues when the email newsletter was converted to .pdf. These formatting issues are not present in the actual emailed version of the newsletter
WebDuck Designs has experienced online marketers that specialize in producing monthly email newsletters for a lot of our clients as well and produce our own WebDuck Designs Monthly Newsletter. This page was written to help you get a better understanding of what exactly email marketing is, how to properly market via email without spamming, and how to maximize the benefits of a well maintained email marketing campaign. Whether you are looking for a company to handle your email marketing needs or just interested in the topic and are considering doing your own email marketing then you are sure to get some valueable information from this page. If you are interesting in speaking to our online marketing department regarding email marketing or any other form of online marketing then feel free to contact us through our secure contact page or give us a call at 860.781.6028.
What Is Email Marketing?
The use of Email Marketing is growing rapidly all over the world due to its affordability and effectiveness. Many companies that rely on the internet for business use email marketing. Email Marketing is when a company promotes their products or services via email. The purpose of email marketing is to give customers or interested people knowledge about what you offer. Email marketing can tell readers of any available incentives to use your business. These incentives are used to entice readers to visit your website and learn more about what you offer.
Where Should You Begin Your Email Marketing Campaign?
Planning is the key component to a successful email marketing campaign. Before beginning an email marketing campaign ask yourself some important questions. Who are you targeting with your email marketing? If your target demographic is age 65 and above, email marketing is not likely to show substantial results and might not be a worthy marketing tactic. However, if you are targeting middle age professionals you will want to run a very professional looking email marketing campaign. in Your Email Marketing Campaign?
The single most important question is what is the purpose of your email marketing efforts? Why do you need to perform email marketing? Are you looking to sell your goods or services? If so, you will want to include an incentive for readers to use your business. If you are looking to inform previous clients of news, you will want to design your email marketing campaign around informational articles.
How often will you use email marketing? If you plan to send out weekly emails, it will require more time and effort than sending out monthly emails. How often you send out emails might also affect what email marketing solution is right for you. Readers become accustom to receiving your emails and might look forward to hearing what you have to offer.
Where will you obtain addresses to email market to? You are likely to want to send emails to current and/or past customers. This means you will need a database to store all email addresses. You might even want to place a sign up box on your website for new visitors to sign up for your email marketing campaign.
How are you going to create your emails and send them? Some businesses choose to manage their own email marketing campaign. Other businesses will work with designers and web specialists to create their emails. Email marketing performed by web professionals may be costly, but you are more likely to get the results you are looking for.
What Email Marketing Services Are Available To Use?
Since email marketing is continuously growing the solutions available are also expanding. There are numerous email marketing companies, email marketing software applications and you can even perform email marketing on your own. With multiple options available it can be difficult to choose the right one for your business. First decide what your goal is and what you plan to do thru email marketing. The budget a business has plays a big part in what method can be used for an email marketing campaign. What you want your email to look like also affects which email marketing option should be used.
Email marketing companies offer users the ability to choose from their templates to create an email. Unfortunately many of these companies limit users to what template changes can be made. These template limitations are fine for some businesses. But if you want your email looking exactly how you envisioned these email marketing companies may not be for you.
If you can get passed their templates these companies also offer excellent reporting options. Email marketing tracking options allow you to view who has opened your email, which opted to not receive your email anymore, which email addresses bounced and even who clicked on links within your email. If you were to send an email to a large amount of addresses directly from your email account it is likely that many of those emails will be detected by a spam filter and be bounced.
The cost of using an email marketing company varies depending on the company and what they offer. One company charges solely on the number of email addresses which you will send emails to, but what they offer is limited. While another company offers a large array of tracking and template options, but is a little pricier.
Email marketing companies are the right solution for many businesses. If you are looking for something less expensive than purchasing email marketing software might be the right choice. Since email marketing software is not expensive it doesn’t come with all the options an email marketing company offers.
Most email marketing applications are loaded with standard templates, but you can only make minimal changes to them. Many email marketing applications do not allow for tracking. Besides phone calls and emails you receive, you will not be able to tell if your marketing tactic is working or if you are just wasting your time and money.
If you use email marketing software chances are you are looking to save money and will want to send your emails directly from your email account. Many of those emails will be filtered by spam blockers, unless you send one by one to all of your email addresses (and wait a few minutes in between each). These spam filters will not allow your email marketing technique to reach your customers and get its potential results. Sending emails from email marketing software eliminates the fee of paying to have your emails sent, but will it take an immense amount of time to send them yourself.
Many businesses (especially web designers) will chose to write their own code to create an email. This allows for your email to be custom and look however you want, but also has its downfalls. Creating your own email marketing template will take more time than adjusting one which is already created. By doing your own email marketing it can be difficult to track results. Creating your own emails will also require you to send them from your own email address, again creating spam problems and taking up more time.
What Are The Different Forms Of Email Marketing?
Newsletters are by far the most commonly used form of email marketing. Many online businesses email out monthly, weekly and even daily newsletters to their customers. Email marketing through newsletters allows for branding of your company. Newsletters let you get your name out there and in potential customer’s faces. Statistics show that they are more likely to keep your business in mind when they are looking for the services you offer if you send out email newsletters.
Email newsletters can be used to simply remind your past clients of what you do or even to update them on any new services which you offer. The standard newsletter format offers room for at least a couple of informational articles which allow you to go into detail about what your company does. Most people are on the web in search of information, so why not email information directly to potential consumers. The more content available in email newsletters the less likely they are to have opt outs or unsubscribers.
Not only do email newsletters contain informational articles, but they can also provide space to advertise a promotion or whatever else you wish to advertise. If a business has a special going on they may wish to include that in their email newsletter to further entice readers to use their services. Larger companies tend to sell space on their email newsletters to other companies wishing to advertise their services (usually in the form of banner advertisements).
Companies which use email marketing on a more regular basis might wish to break up their newsletters by sending out promotional emails or coupons. Studies show that emails containing special deals are likely to increase company sales dramatically. Promotional emails allow businesses to keep their customers up to date on any specials or events. Emailing promotional coupons forces interested readers to open their newsletter and visit your website to redeem the offer, thus increasing website traffic and sales. Many of the email marketing programs offer not only newsletter templates, but also coupon templates. Companies may choose to offer promotional discounts to entice website visitors to sign up for their newsletter. Having incentives for registered users has been proven to increase company mailing lists.
If a company wishes to announce events to clients, they can choose to send out an email just to discuss their event. Some email marketing programs even allow for readers to reply directly in the email if they are planning to attend the event. Ticketmaster for example sends emails to notify past customers of any upcoming shows. This is an effective method of keeping clients (who might not visit their website often) up to date on any new events.
Many companies announce their news via online press releases. The problem with this is that your current customers are not likely to find your press release and read it. By emailing your press release to everyone on your mailing list it allows you to make sure everyone is aware of your news. If a company is relocating or is launching a new website, they can use email marketing to make everyone aware of their latest news.
Since email marketing is a very effective marketing strategy some companies may wish to utilize every form of email marketing. Depending on what your business needs are, you may chose to just send out a monthly newsletter that incorporates your company news, informational articles and even promotions.
What Are The Benefits Of Email Marketing?
By using email marketing instead of marketing via snail mail it can save a company an immense amount of money. It costs $410 to postmark a newsletter to 1,000 people, whereas email marketing typically costs about $50 for 1,000 emails. The cost of to print newsletters, (toner, paper and envelopes) can be pricey, but with email marketing none of those costs apply saving companies a large sum. The postage and copy savings alone is enough for a company to switch to email marketing.
By using email marketing instead of marketing via snail mail it can save a company an immense amount of money. It costs $410 to postmark a newsletter to 1,000 people, whereas email marketing typically costs about $50 for 1,000 emails. The cost of to print newsletters, (toner, paper and envelopes) can be pricey, but with email marketing none of those costs apply saving companies a large sum. The postage and copy savings alone is enough for a company to switch to email marketing.
Email marketing is a less time consuming process overall than sending out snail mail. How long does it take to create a newsletter, print out numerous copies, label thousands of envelopes, stuff and seal a mass amount of envelopes and then stamp them all? The whole snail mail marketing process is very time consuming compared to email marketing. With a click of a button you can email your newsletter to thousands of potential customers saving you a lot of time. If readers choose to learn more about what your company offers, they simply click a button inside your email to visit your website. With snail mail readers are not necessarily at their computer, causing them to go out of their way if they want to learn more about you.
It could take weeks for all your customers to receive your snail mail as opposed to a few hours when sending out emails. I would rather give my email address out to businesses than give out my home address. Many internet users would much rather be sent an email than snail mail. This means that sending out email newsletters opens companies up to a larger assortment of clientele.
With all the benefits of email marketing it is difficult to understand why all businesses don’t use email marketing. When compared to snail mail, email marketing is less cost burdening, less time consuming and is more effective.
How To Obtain An Email Marketing List?
Companies can get their email marketing lists from various sources, only some of which are considered legal. The most common method of obtaining email addresses for marketing is thru opt-in lists. Many companies actually have a “sign up for our newsletter” box on their website homepage. This allows them to notify visitors upon entering their website that they send out email newsletters. Since opt-ins chose to join your email marketing list on their own, they are more likely to actually pay attention to your emails.
A fair amount of companies have a database in their website that stores email addresses from anyone which has contacted the company. This list is where companies can expect to see a great number of responses or interest in their services. The visitors who visited your website and contacted you are more than likely already interested in what your company offers. They are also likely to be interested in hearing from you and what discounts they can receive from you.
Opt-ins and contact forms are the most commonly used source of email marketing lists, however there are other ways in which businesses can receive email addresses. There are loads of sites who sell email addresses in an effort for businesses to reach as many people as possible. Obtaining a large email marketing list is great, but purchasing email address lists and marketing to them is not a legal tactic on the web. Hackers can always be found on the web and some of them concentrate solely on stealing email addresses. Those companies who sell email address lists are likely to have obtained the addresses from a hacker. Partaking in these illegal tactics will probably give you a good amount of email addresses to market to, but most of those recipients are not likely to pay attention to your emails and can even get you into trouble.
How To Increase Email Opens?
Since every reader and business is different it is difficult to say exactly what email marketing strategies in general work to increase sales and which don’t work. There are a couple of strategies that work throughout all email marketing campaigns.
What is the first thing that readers will see when you send them an email? Even if recipients don’t choose to open your email marketing efforts they can still view the subject of your email. Just having a good subject line can increase your email opening drastically. The email subject line should be something catchy that will grab viewer’s attention. To create an effective subject line, first ask yourself what is the goal of your email marketing? How can you get recipients to open your email? What will readers get out of reading your email? If you found a compelling subject line and the reader opens your email, have what they are looking for right in front of them. If they are looking to learn about a deal your company is offering, have that information easily accessible.
Aside from a proper subject line, emails should be personalized to the recipient. Rather than addressing emails as “Dear client”, you might want to address them “Dear John Doe”. Most email marketing programs allow users to easily personalize emails. Readers trust can be increased simply by personalizing their emails.
With all the benefits of email marketing it’s a wonder why all companies don’t take advantage of the results email marketing has to offer. With proper planning and thought email marketing can be a highly effective form of online marketing for nearly any business.
WebDuck Designs 2007