Getting Started With E-mail Marketing

Guest post by Wendy Lowe

For small businesses, e-mail marketing is one of the best tools available to increase revenue and awareness of what you’re offering.  However, a lot of people don’t know where to start.

Here is a great list to get you on the road to effective e-mail marketing.

Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Take a step back and think through what you’re trying to accomplish.  The best way to do this is to see things through your customer’s eyes – what would they want?

• What type of information would attract attention and get people to open, read and act on your e-mail campaigns?
• Would they want coupons, special offers or promotions?
• Would they rather have valuable information and practical tips they can use?

Build an e-mail marketing plan for the year. Look at the calendar, again from your customer’s perspective.

• Map out promotions, topics and campaigns that will help you reach out to your customers at the right time with the right information. Think about holidays or events occurring throughout the year that you can plan around.
• You know your customers better than anyone else, so roughing out a flexible plan for the year shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours.
• Investing time planning up front will dramatically improve the performance of your e-mail marketing campaigns.  Your customers will also appreciate getting relevant e-mails when they want them.

Start building your opt-in e-mail list. Opt-in means that your customers understand clearly that by signing up they are giving you permission to send them e-mail communications. In addition to name and email address, think about other information that you can collect that will help you target your e-mail campaigns, such as gender or geography.

• Include a check-off box option for your customers to learn more about certain products and services as well as topics, issues and challenges that interest them.
• Use all of the tools at your disposal to gather e-mail and customer information including a quick sign up on your homepage.
• Actively seek people you want to reach by attending relevant trade shows and conferences.  Gather business cards, ask for permission and add them to your list!

Launch your first email campaign! Kick things off by introducing yourself and setting expectations.  Let your audience know the type of information they’ll be receiving and how frequently to expect it.

• In your first campaign, don’t just sell, but also offer valuable information or tips your audience can use.
• Encourage feedback to begin an ongoing dialogue with customers, allowing you to continually gather more detailed profile information to improve the targeting of future campaigns.

Your e-mail campaign is a work in progress. The important thing is to take the first step and send your first e-mail.  From there, it will grow with you as you learn the tricks of the trade. By following this checklist you should have a good idea how to kick things off.

Wendy Lowe is Regional Development Director for Campaigner, an e-mail marketing solution that enables organizations to have personalized one-to-one e-mail dialogues with their customers, measure how they respond, and analyze those responses.