Encyclopedia >> Types of Marketing >> Email
Email Marketing
Email marketing is the process of creating and sending an email to a select list of people in the attempt to promote ideas, increase awareness, or sell products and services.
In order to succeed with email marketing you need several ingredients. These include your emailing list (names and addresses), the email message itself, and a way to distribute that message to your targeted list of people. Of course, you also need a product or service worth promoting in the first place, but we will assume you already have that.
Building the List
Obviously, you cannot proceed with an email marketing campaign until you have a list of people to whom you can send your email message. This is referred to as the list or database. You can build your list in many ways, but let's start with the basic distinction between buying versus growing a list.
- Buying a List - With this technique, you would buy an email marketing list from a "list broker." We do not recommend this technique, because it removes the permission factor from the marketing equation and basically equates to spam. So see next item...
- Growing a List - Experts agree that this is by far the best way to create a list for email marketing purposes. With this approach, you are building your email list by encouraging people to sign up for it. This is the "permission based" approach.
Permission-based email marketing (the second option above) is when you create an email newsletter program of some kind, and then invite people to subscribe to the list. The key here is to offer something of value to increase the number of subscribers. If you explain the value of the information within the emails — helpful how-to advice, special offers, etc. — people will be more inclined to join your list.
Creating Your Email Message
From a design standpoint, creating the actual email for your marketing campaign is fairly simple. For example, you can find HTML email templates all over the Internet, and many of them can be downloaded for free. You can start with one of these templates, adjust it as needed, add your logo and company name, and you're ready to go.
The harder part of your email marketing campaign is the actual message. You can create a design in an hour or so — but the message will require more forethought and effort on your part. My advice is to add as much value to your emails as possible. If you only send "fluff" content but no real meat, people will start unsubscribing from the email newsletter list. That's the last thing you want.
When putting the content and design together, try to keep it simple. The more graphics and coding you add to the HTML email, the greater the risk of it being blocked by people's email programs. It's common (and logical) to create the full articles on your website, and then simply link to them from the email. That way, you can offer a few summaries of stories (known as "teasers") and people can click the one they want. This also reduces the amount of text in the email, making it easier to read.
Email Marketing Solutions
So now you have a list of recipients / subscribers, as well as the actual email that is designed and ready to send. Now what? Well, you need a way to distribute your email to your audience. You could do this manually, but that's not the right way to go about it. By using an email marketing company you will save a lot of time and energy.
Email marketing solutions come in all shapes and sizes. Some are software programs that simplify some aspect of the emailing process, while others are email marketing companies who handle everything but the messaging for you. I recommend using the latter, a company who will handle most of the logistics.
If you choose a full-service email marketing company for your campaigns, you will first set up an account with that company. Then you can log in to their website and create email sign-up boxes for your website. You can also create and manage separate mailing lists, use their newsletter templates, track your open rates, and a lot more.
Another benefit to using an email marketing company is that the list-management is handled automatically. For example, once you put the sign-up box on your website, visitors can subscribe directly to your email newsletter. If they want to unsubscribe later on, they can do that by clicking a link at the bottom of each email. You will get notifications when these actions take place, but you don't have to do anything. The email marketing service does it all automatically.
I hope you've enjoyed this entry on the world of email marketing campaigns, and I wish you luck with your own emailing efforts.
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