Email Marketing

The use of email marketing for a small business is probably one of the most effective ways of staying in touch with your customers. You are able to keep them informed of relevant information such as:

• Specials / Discounts / Coupons / Promotions - Within your newsletter, you can include coupons for a percentage off of services or products with links back to your website
• Product / Service information
• Industry information
• Company information
• Sweepstakes or Give-aways

How Email Marketing Can Benefit You

There are many excellent choices for email marketing solutions. Upon signing up with your selected choice, you create an account, build your email / distribution list and then design your newsletter. Most email marketing companies operate the same way. There are professionally designed templates that allow you to add boxes of content, create links and add images. You are also able to modify the template by changing the color theme, font type and size and other changes for more customization. For the more technically savvy, you can upload your own templates to maintain consistency in branding.

You will probably want to design your "Subscribe to Newsletter" form for your website. This is the little box or graphic (some sites are very creative) that visitors enter their email address and click "Submit" (or a variation of this) to subscribe. Another form will appear that will generally ask for additional information such as name or whatever info you request. You want to probably keep it simple. People can become a little hesitant about providing to much information initially before they have established a relationship with you or your business.

Once you create your newsletter, you will want to determine the following:

• How often will your newsletter be distributed? Will it be monthly, weekly, bi-monthly? Studies have shown that the more consistent you are with your communication, the more effective your email campaign will be. Develop a system including an auto responder that will keep your clients informed on a regular basis.

• What do you like about the newsletters your receive? You probably have subscribed to at least a couple of newsletters and either click on them to actually read the contents or you just ignore them - even delete them. Or worse, you may unsubscribe to the newsletter. (By law, you have to give subscribers the option to opt-out of receiving your newsletters. Email marketing companies should be in compliance with this law. If not, you will want to find a new provider) For the newsletters that you read, what entices you to open them? Is it the content? Is it the presentation? Do the headlines grab your attention? Take note of what makes you take interest in that newsletter and incorporate some of those ideas into your newsletter.

There are many email marketing companies, but below are a few that I have had personal experience with or have heard very positive reviews about:

• Constant Contact
• MailChimp
• A-Weber
• IContact
• Vertical Response

The companies referenced above offer superior service and provide users with a wealth of tools and training, as well as support. The plans vary in cost depending on your subscriber list and monthly distribution. The costs start from $10.00 monthly (although with MailChimp, you can get started for free). Many of them will offer you a free account until you reach a certain level of monthly distribution - usually 500. At that point, you will begin to incur a monthly charge. But that will be great because it shows that your email marketing is working and people are interested in your website or blog content and want to receive ongoing information from you.

As a small business owner, you may even decide that you would like to offer email marketing as a value-added service to your clients depending on the type of business that you have. Many email marketing companies offer partnerships where they can help you to market these services by providing a vast knowledge base of information and training (webinars, online tutorials). The companies shown above like Constant Contact and A-Weber, all offer a wealth of information for partners and a solid support system.

Constant Contact even conducts seminars throughout the country for small business owners to attend. It is not only to promote their services but they offer valuable training on how to market your business overall. I attended a training and was very impressed with what I learned. Constant Contact takes email marketing very seriously and their focus is small business owners. I highly recommend "The Constant Contact Guide to Email Marketing," by Eric Groves. (see link on right side of page). CLICK HERE to view a short video from the author that highlights the book. It actually sold out at the seminar so I purchased it online. It will really give you a solid foundation on email marketing - what works and what does not; how to create a successful email marketing campaign and even how to write engaging content so that your visitors will want to return to your website. You will not be disappointed with this book. Regardless of which company you choose, this information will be of great help to you.

You cannot go wrong with distributing a newsletter to your clients. You will keep them informed, engaged, loyal and give them a reason to become a regular visitor to your website or blog.