Email marketing is simply the act of sending out a promotional message, usually to an unqualified list of recipients, via email. By its broader definition, any email sent out to a prospective or existing customer can be considered email marketing. It typically involves the use of email to transmit advertisements, solicit donations or enlist support for a product or service. Today, as more businesses are turning to digital media for their marketing strategies, email marketing has become a critical tool for generating leads and establishing contacts with potential customers. A well-designed email marketing campaign can indeed help grow your business.
The first step towards successful email marketing is to establish some communication goals. It is essential that you define what you wish to achieve from this marketing campaign, and how you intend to measure the results of your campaign. You may wish to measure the number of emails sent, the rate of open rates, the response rate, or even the time spent on each piece of promotional mail. Whatever goal you set, make sure to communicate it to your recipients in clear terms.
Email marketing software tools abound on the Internet. This is great news, especially if you don’t know how to write effective messages yourself. However, this can be a very powerful tool, as it allows you to instantly test different material and see the results almost immediately. One simple way to measure the effectiveness of an email marketing campaign is to compare open rates, click-through rates and read rates. This data will allow you to quickly see which campaigns are more effective than others.
For many companies, the problem lies in not knowing which messages to target and which to avoid. If you already have a list of prospective customers or clients, the process becomes much simpler. However, for many companies and people who do not yet have a list, it is difficult to choose what to send and how to build a relationship with these people. Fortunately, email marketing automation can solve this problem. Email marketing automation takes the guesswork out of creating and distributing marketing materials-as well as eliminating the time-consuming process of creating and keeping track of individual emails.
One of the best parts of using email marketing automation is that it allows your small business to expand into new markets faster. The great thing about Ezine advertising is that you can target markets that you may not otherwise have the resources to reach. For example, if you are operating a small business in Kansas, you probably wouldn’t want to advertise in Colorado or New York. Instead, you would focus your resources on small cities in these territories. If you had an email marketing campaign in Kansas, you would send emails only to those people in this city, and never to those in other cities.
Email marketing tools also allow you to easily identify the people who read your emails. Tracking the responses to your promotional campaigns allows you to identify which messages are working, which ones are not working, and helps you make the necessary changes as necessary. Tracking your progress can also help you see which campaigns are having a greater impact-and helps you make the necessary adjustments as needed. Email marketing campaigns don’t have to be complicated. In fact, they can be incredibly easy to run and manage. Look for a software product that lets you import and distribute data, organizes your data so you can analyze it easily, and gives you the ability to segment your customer base so you can determine whether particular groups need more attention or are simply wasting your time.