Email Marketing

• The average UK office worker spends 49 minutes a day working through their email (BBC, 2002).
• Many business people now receive over 100 e-mails a day.
• Spam accounts for between 36-64 per cent of all e-mails worldwide.
• One out of every 2.8 e-mail messages tracked worldwide was a spam message.
• Over 50 per cent of spam messages in 2003 came from the US.

So today's challenge is to get e-newsletters and e-mails opened, let alone actioned. These figures illustrate that you need to make your subject line and opening paragraph scream read me rather than delete me. How do you make your e communications stand out from the rest? By sticking to a few roles. For example,

A key e-mail marketing campaign message should:

• have a single, clear, immediate message
• have a compelling headline or e-mail subject line to attract interest
• provide value and stimulate interest
• reveal benefits and end-results
• call prospects to take action
• act only as a teaser.

But make sure your emails are:

• timely
• relevant
• solicited
• quick and snappy to read
• precise, clear and simple
• personal
• containing information of value to the recipient
• well targeted
• customer-focused
• urgent
• selling only the web page and not the whole kit and caboodle
• fully integrated.

Why E-mail?

• It's quick, cheap and cost-effective.
• It gets better response rates than direct mail and other media.
• It allows for good customer retention and prospect list building.
• It's a great tool for viral marketing (including something in your e-mail that is compelling enough for the recipient to pass it on to their contact network by e-mail, spreading the e-mail like a virus across the globe).
• It allows customised, immediate, automated responses.
• It offers a quick method of distributing customer surveys and tracking message results.

E-mail also puts you on an even footing with the big boys. Posh stationery and logos, large corporations and smart offices are irrelevant in the realm of e-marketing. With regular e-mails you can build relationships and gather market intelligence. Send regular e-mails to your online prospect list containing special offers, useful information, resources and links, product or service updates, new offers or free reports and surveys. You can also establish yourself as an expert, as a resource for invaluable information by sending out useful e-newsletters or e-zines. At the same time, you can find out what offers your audience responds to best, and what they want to gain or achieve, by e-mailing surveys.You can also respond fast to enquiries from your site.

However, with new laws on unsolicited e-mail (SPAM), you can only build your list of people to e-mail regularly by giving them the chance to opt-in and subscribe to your list. They must be able to request removal from your list at any time, and you mustn't share or pass on their details.

Encourage website visitors to subscribe/opt-in by having an opt-in box on your website.