Article DetailsEmail Marketing |
| Date Added: October 07, 2008 08:35:42 PM |
| Author: |
| Category: Marketing |
| Like the great book says: These are the best of times and these are the worst of times. With the advent of the Internet as a viable tool of ecommerce only a decade ago, small business owners were propelled into a new arena where on the one hand they now had access to unheard of numbers of clients, but on the other hand they’d suddenly left themselves open to all kinds of electronic mischief through the Internet’s primary source of communication, email. Over the years there has been a unanimous edict that has come down from the experts regarding unsolicited email and that’s that it should be ignored. These people suggest that all online stores and customers alike commit to an opt in policy that limits email marketing messages. In this way only the other people who have opted in can get messages requesting more information since they have elected to do so. In fact, many small online business go a step further by allowing a recipient to opt out after every email message they receive. Beyond a show of good faith on the part of the business owner, this puts the product in good standing with the customer since they feel like they aren’t being pressured to buy. You should also limit the opt in to those who were referred to you by a colleague or by a group related to your business with the assurance that it will be fine to send them this information. Very often here you’ll need to ask yourself how well you really know the person before you hit the send button. It is often necessary for you to run through the following checklist before you send any email to any of the following people. First off you’ll need to double check to make sure that the person asked you to send them the email. Has this person previously asked for this kind of information from your business? As well try to be as sure as possible that the person who will get the email with the information will find it both useful and interesting. Make sure to add a line in the email that ties the message in with the referring source so that the person is clear why the message is coming to them. Another thing you’ll need to consider is plain good manners. Don’t ever publish a list of your carefully collected email addresses on your website even as a testimonial. There are many spam mailers that look for these kinds of opportunities and if your clients are able to trace this back to you, you might find yourself out quite a few customers. Handled the right way, email can allow the small business owner an online experience where they can tap into a market that’s larger than anything they thought possible. Of course, the downside of the Internet experience is the sheer volume of email makes it a target for less than honorable uses as well. |
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