| By
Jennifer Shaheen, The Technology Therapist®
As featured in
Women & Biz Magazine and WomensRadio.com
If you find this
article helpful:
 Big businesses spend millions of dollars on branding
their names, focusing on being everywhere and playing the
odds that consumers will eventually notice their product or
service when the time is right. As a small, but growing business,
I do not have that luxury nor do I have the budget to accomplish
that task. So I decided over 2 years ago to use the Internet
to communicate and stay connected with my audience. I made
a commitment to create an email newsletter in January of 2003
and oh... how it has grown. But now in 2005 with spam guards
and blacklists more and more small businesses wonder if email
marketing is worth it.
The answer is simply YES!*
Fact: In December 2003, 44 people signed up for one of our
free web classes. Out of those registered, 86% responded to
an email invitation.
I added the * because there is more to it than just creating
an email and sending it out once a month. You have to plan
and target who your audience is and what they are really looking
for.
Here are a few tips to help you get started:
- Understand the difference between a mass email and email
marketing
A mass email is something you would send to a group of recipients
through Outlook, Eudora or Entourage with members in the BCC
(Blind Carbon Copy) field with no way to track if they even
opened your message. Email marketing is much more detailed.
You need to use an outside company to send the email for you.
A company that provides you with the ability to track how
many people open your message. Without tracking how do you
know your email marketing is working? You don't.
- Subject hook. The subject line is the hook for people to
open or trash your email. You have less than 10 words to convince
someone you have something they want and need. Use keywords
that will excite or even enrage your target audience. If you
know your audience you will know just what they desire or
even fear.
- Consistency wins every time. Create a plan and stick to
it. If you say you are going to do something weekly then set
a certain day of the week. If you want to send a monthly newsletter
choose a day and a week for example, 2nd Wednesday of every
month. You want your audience to look forward to getting your
information.
- Target your mailings. Most email systems allow you to create
groups or even classify audience members by specific characteristics.
This will allow you to send different emails with articles
or topics that relate more to your target groups. For example
if you run a spa, you would want to segment men & women.
Send both groups a list of services specific to them. Women
have many of the same services as men but remove the items
not applicable to them and maybe add pictures of women’s
products only and then do the same for the men. Running separate
campaigns like this may take you an extra 30 minutes but the
return will be well worth the effort.
- Link to your web site. When you create an email marketing
campaign with a weekly article or tip you should not put the
entire article in the body because then you won't know if
people were truly interested and read the whole article. When
you link back to your site you get a clear picture of what
people are really interested in.
- Review the data. Make time to go back and review what's
hot & what's not. Email marketing is one of the few areas
you get immediate feedback. I recommend a quarterly review.
Look at what topics people were most interested in. Now you
can make target follow up calls or even send letters.
Email marketing can be a powerful tool to reach your market
with targeted campaigns and email marketing is the only marketing
where you can get instant feedback on what people like. If
you take these steps and add on promotions and other incentives
you will see a big difference in your business.
©The Technology Therapy Group, LLC
Jennifer Shaheen - The eMarketing and Technology Therapist
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