If you have decided you would like to use e-mail
marketing to promote or build your business then
you should already know this is a cost effective
and efficient way of promoting any size business.
Now you need to know the different types of
e-mail marketing techniques that are available.
You will find you can use just one or any
combination of these methods to increase your
business sales.
E-zines (electronic or Internet newsletter) is a
common method used for e-mail marketing. An
e-zine normally contains three parts;
information, an ad, and a way to be removed from
the list. This information included in the e-zine
should be something helpful, informative,
interesting, and pertain to your business. A
beauty shop may produce an e-zine about new
products in the business while a book story may
offer reviews of new books on the market. Of
course the ad should be for your business or a
particular product or service you are promoting
at the time.
SoloAds are one of the simplest forms of e-mail
marketing. Just as the title ‘SoloAds’
says these e-mails will contain nothing but an
advertisement. This ad may be for a new product
line, discounts you are running, or other things
along these lines. Of course it should also
contain a way for the subscriber to stop
receiving your marketing campaign but as long as
you don’t abuse this method it can be very
effective.
Using online ‘Post Cards’ is another
way to use e-mail marketing to build your
business. This method of marketing is mainly used
for keeping in touch with past customers or those
who are current customers. It’s not as
helpful for creating or attracting new customers.
A small business might use a Post Card to thank
customers for their business, announce upcoming
events at your business, or simply to keep your
business in the eye and minds of your customers.
E-brochures are yet another way to promote your
business using e-mail marketing. Although there
most generally will be a cost behind this method
of promoting your business the cost is remarkably
below what it would be to use printed brochures.
How e-brochures work is you design or have
someone else design a brochure for your business
and then distribute it to prospective customers.
This is very effective because it can provide the
future customer a wealth of information about
your company and you can distribute this brochure
over and over again without ever having to have
additional brochures printed.
The last method of e-mail marketing we will
discuss are E-courses. While e-courses are more
involved than say a solo-ad marketing campaign
they can be very effective in increasing sales
for your business. What an e-course is simply is
a series of informative related e-mail lessons. A
business that sells camping equipment might offer
an e-course ‘How to Survive in the
Wilderness’ or ‘Camping on a
Budget’. Each e-mail will contain a portion
of the lesson along with an ad relating to your
business or some camping equipment. A typical
e-course will be 7-10 lessons delivered over a
period of time (daily, weekly, or monthly).
Why using e-courses for e-mail marketing is so
successful is that once the subscriber subscribes
to the e-course that gives you as the business
owner 7-10 chances to develop a relationship with
the prospective customer. Studies show that most
people will not purchase from a company until
they have seen the company at least 5 times. That
means if you don’t catch and keep their
attention in those first 4 mailings chances are
they will not become a customer.
You may want to hire a professional to write an
e-course for you to make sure you put your best
foot forward all through the course but remember
once the e-course is written you can distribute
it endlessly. All of these methods work
tremendously to build any business and can be
used alone or together, the sky’s the limit
when it comes to the possibilities available
through e-mail marketing methods.
Faith Wright-Draper (aka
byfaithonly) has been writing for over 40
years as a journalist, ghostwriter, and
freelancer. She currently writes for
several blogs, freelances, and writes on
her own website www.byfaithonly.com