Email Marketing – don’t run away when you see those words. Give me a minute to explain how it’s no longer dirty, annoying and useless but actually an efficient, cost effective and practical way to market in this day and age. What do you have to lose? Worst thing that could happen is I convince you I’m a Saudi prince that needs $20,000.00 that I will pay back tenfold once I can get access to my gold depository.Sure, when you think of emails from a business your mind might automatically revert back to SPAM (a/k/a junk email, a/k/a unsolicited bulk email, a/k/a terrible virus-ridden pornography driven pieces of sh*t!!!!). But, I’m here to tell you that while there is still plenty of SPAM out there on the World Wide Web, email marketing has carved out it’s place in the online marketing world…The key is doing it right.
So what is the “right” way to use eblasts to market your business? Let me tell you, there is a lot more to it than going into your contact list and hitting send. For starters it’s just like any other type of marketing, you need to start out with a plan. Who is your target audience? Are you going after new customers or trying to stay in touch with existing ones? If you are targeting new customers where are you going to get their emails? How would you even go about getting the emails to all the restaurant owners or bank managers in the area? A very important part of distinguishing illegal SPAM emails and legitimate eblasts are how and where you obtain client lists. For every quality list you can get there are 100 that will do you no good and cost you too much. Seeking out a professional marketing company to assist you with obtaining these lists is key.
Now, once you have identified whom you are going after, then it’s figuring out what you’re going to say and how you’re going to say it. Think about how many emails you open a day. Now, if that email you send isn’t designed properly so that the person opening it wants to read it and wants to click on it immediately then you’ve lost the battle right there. It needs to look professional and capture their interest. Because if it doesn’t, it’s in their trash quicker than you can say SPAM.What else distinguishes a successful eblast? Data. What good is any marketing if you don’t know how it performs? If you send out a professionally done eblast you will have excellent data the next day to review. You will see how many emails were open, who specifically opened it, what section or topic they clicked on, even how many times they opened it or sent it along to other people. All this data is great information to help your business get its message across to the right people.
So yes, maybe eblasts aren’t the sexiest form of marketing. Maybe it still has some ground to make up in people’s minds. But at the end of the day if you do it the right way and your client or potential customer receives a good looking, creative and useful message from you then it will leave a lasting positive impression on them and really, that’s what marketing your business is all about. Don’t believe us? Sign up to receive our Eblast and we’ll show ya!