The Marketing Agency Talk

Email marketing is a form of cheap marketing for many small business owners and home based businesses anywhere around the world. So long as you have internet access and a computer, you are ready to spread the word about your products and services.

Done properly, email marketing can be very effective. Done haphazardly, your email marketing campaign becomes nothing more than junk mails sent to wrong markets.

The key elements that form an effective email marketing campaign are

The list
The offer
The follow-up.

1. Get the Right List

Don’t go cheap by getting a list of 50,000 names for $2000. The so-called “saving” may actually be wiped out when email addresses bounce or when the recipients start to complain to their ISP about your “spamming”. Of course, the best way to get a list is to build your own database. This can be done via online or offline means. For example, when you receive a business card, tell the giver politely that you will be sending him more information on your product and service via email. Or you can add in a line in your material, “tick here if you like to receive more information and freebies from us”. The list that you cultivate will be formed by prospective customers, and not unsuspecting spam victims.

2. Make the Right Offer

Even if your message reached the target audience, you have only one shot to make him click on your links and to read your content. Have a killer subject line. Address him by his name and not something impersonal like “Hi there” or “Dear Sirs”. Your main copy must have something that catches his attention and that allows him to know you have something that solves his headaches and problems or provide him with more pleasure. As Anthony Robbins said, all humans want to “avoid pain and gain pleasure”. So WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) is the key to your copy. Answer that and you will find yourself a ready buyer.

3. Do Regular Follow-up

Steven Pierre, the internet guru, said “… never ever stop selling to your list”. Using an AutoResponder to follow up with prospects and clients regularly will increase response dramatically. The follow up letters should repeat the original selling message and each follow-up can highlight a particular feature and specific benefit. So according to the man, you got to keep telling them, reminding them and reinforce the strength of your product and services to them. After they bought your product/service, start another round of email marketing to up-sell them something related.

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