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Page 21
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E-Mail Marketing
Wow, you've actually attracted a shopper to your Web site — now you
have to convince them to come back. A great way to do that is to send
them an e-mail with relevant and timely product offers.
But harvesting your shoppers' e-mail addresses is easier said than done.
Typically you have to offer today's spam-wary shoppers something of real
value to cajole them into parting with their e-mail. Some merchants
offer a coupon or a discount on purchase. Whatever you offer, it's a
good idea to provide a sign-up option on every page.
This process of gathering e-mail addresses
is part of what's called opt-in marketing or permission marketing. Two
key principles of successful opt-in marketing are: 1) letting your
shoppers know you'll never, ever, give or sell their e-mail address to
another party; and 2) providing a Unsubscribe link so they can easily
get off your list.
If don't have an e-mail list, you might consider renting one. There are
vendors who sell lists of address of people who have indicated they're
interested in a given topic. Be careful, though, because some of these
vendors are simply spammers selling addresses they've collected with
automated harvesting software - e-mailing to these lists will quickly
make you a very unpopular merchant. You can search for e-mail list
vendors at the Direct Marketing Association, among other places.
You'll need special software to administer your e-mail marketing
campaigns - gathering addresses in Outlook Express just won't do. If
you're on a tight budget, there's a free version of the popular Group
Mail software, and a low cost version of the popular Constant Contact.
Other leading programs include Gammadyne Mail and iBuilder, and there
are many good group e-mail applications.
To be sure, e-mail marketing is one of the great special weapons of
online store owners. But your e-mails must be written effectively — a
complicated art form that takes considerable time to master. The basics,
however, include two golden rules:
-
A compelling subject line Getting
your users to open your e-mail is the biggest hurdle because we're
all drowning in spam. The subject line must romance your specific
target demographic, not merely the general audience, and it must
offer real value without hucksterism. It's a good idea to include an
"action word" like free, bargain, sale, and close-out, or promise
some truly interesting tidbit of information.
-
Make the body copy brief —
and
relevant
Your readers won't give you much time, so you must
state your message succinctly. The point is to present an offer. It
can be a free sample, free shipping, a money-back offer, a special
new customer discount, a quantity discount or any of dozens of other
offers. But the offer must be clear and present compelling value.
How often should you send out e-mails?
There's no set answer, but the point is to establish a regular
connection without pestering your customers. At a minimum, e-mail your
customers once a quarter. Many businesses send a couple mailings a
month, and plenty send weekly mailings.
Marketing Your Site: The Bottom Line
The process of promoting your site never stops - and it never gets
cheap. The only way to truly thrive online is to market constantly, and
to regularly monitor the results of your marketing efforts.
Start now and don't stop!
by: Syed Najam Ahmed,
Qualified Google Advertising Professional
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Online Money-Making Opportunities
Several Systems to make real money via
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