A how-to for email marketing

April 22, 2010

Emailing marketing, simply put, is when a company uses email to communicate with customers for marketing purposes.

This form of marketing has rocketed in popularity in recent years, not least because it is relatively cheap to implement and incredibly speedy in its delivery.

However, companies underestimate the pitfalls of email marketing at their peril. It has its own rules of engagement; bend these rules and you could be breaking the law, or tarnishing your company’s precious reputation.

One of the most important things when approaching email marketing is to ensure that you have people’s permission to contact them and that what you send to them is useful. Content is paramount.

A quick list of what you need to consider for email marketing:
1) You need a plan to collect email addresses. Some people are very reluctant to give you their email address so you may need to incentivise them, e.g. by asking customers to provide an email address when qualifying for a promotional price.
2) Resist buying email lists as people on these lists did not give permission for you to contact them and may not appreciate an email from you.
3) Consider how you will send the emails. You may want to look at using more sophisticated email list management software such as Service Roundtable, rather than your usual email client.
4) Carefully consider the content of your emails and make sure that the information is useful and properly targeted.