Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Learn About Managing Your Own Business' Email Marketing

By Darrel Hawes


An extremely effective way of marketing your products and services is email marketing. Every size and type of business is using it. Why are they using email marketing? Because it works!

Email marketing has the following advantages: relatively low cost, speed, viral (messages can be easily forwarded to others, without your direct involvement or knowledge), can drive traffic to an offline offer, and with the right systems, messages can be customized.

Amazon.com is a great example of customization. Amazon only sends recommendations related to what the customer has bought before. People are interested in some subjects but not other subjects, and the more closely communications are based upon the things that appeal to the individual, the larger the chance that the message will come across.

Email campaigns can easily direct traffic to an offline offer. One method is sending out coupons. This system is utilized by the bookstore Borders with great success, as they frequently send out coupons that can be used in their local store. "Good for one day only" coupons are also used by service businesses to fill empty slots.

Perhaps you don't yet have the tools to manage an email marketing system. You have two major categories of choice: firstly, whether to purchase a program that installs on your own server. Alternatively, you can also utilize a hosted service and have your email database stored on a third-party's server.

Using your own program would give you more flexibility and opportunities for customization, but it's your choice. If you want to look into it, popular options are Auto Response and Mailloop.

Hosted services may cost a small amount upfront, but undoubtedly require a monthly fee. However, there are advantages. Services like Aweber, GetResponse, 1ShoppingCart, and EmailAces are run by experts in this area, who will help in the event of spam complaints.

Email marketing can be an excellent part of your marketing mix. If used properly, it can easily increase your revenue and help you retain customers.

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