The Four Golden Rules of Email Marketing

from The Four Golden Rules of Email Marketing

Rule No. 1: The email must be Anticipated

Why waste time and effort sending emails to recipients who don't need what you sell, don't want your products and know nothing about you? We recommend sticking with "opt-in" email lists to optimize results. Don't have an address list of hot prospects primed to buy? Not to worry. This can be accomplished in a number of different ways.

You can entice individuals to visit your Web site with special offers to those who opt-in. Banner ads can also drive people who have an interest in your offers. Of course, marketing materials of any kind should include your Web site. Once there, make it easy for people to act, driving your sales.

Rule No. 2: The email must be Relevant

We recommend that our clients use information they gain about their customers selectively to keep them informed. If you are a jeweler, for example, and one of your customers purchased an anniversary ring for his wife in 2005, your messaging can remind this customer of the approaching date and also provide selective information about new jewelry designs and styles that would be perfect for the up-and-coming anniversary.

This puts the sender in the position of providing information that is needed and wanted. It's time-sensitive and it provides new product information based upon past behavior.

Rule No. 3: The email must Offer Value

Research shows that consumers act on offers of value more than anything else. Having a sale on widgets? Customers who bought widgets in the past are the perfect customers to buy widgets when they go on sale. The most successful email marketing programs track this data and use it intelligently. I often ask company owners to think like their customers and answer the question: "Is my email address worth parting with?" In this day and age, it's the equivalent of asking for a phone number that's privately listed.

Rule No. 4: The email must be Integrated

For maximum benefit, your email messaging must be integrated with both content and commerce feedback loops in the form of product up-sells that leverage database data to meet needs (e.g., the next most likely product model) and surveys that allow the customer to provide data points that are used to better service and connect with the consumer.

It's also important to know that any company, regardless of size, can afford an email marketing program. In this day and age, with the ease of measuring your real-time ROI, who can afford not to? Moreover, small businesses can get in the game for a relatively small investment. Using this marketing strategy won't break the bank and, better still, will help you make a trip to one.

Excepts from The Four Golden Rules of E-Mail Marketing by Mike Ferranti E-Commerce Times - 05/16/07 Michael Ferranti is CEO of Endai Worldwide, an Internet marketing and search engine optimization firm.