E-mail marketing can be one of the most cost-effective ways to stay in touch with current clients and prospects, and reach out to new leads for your small business. It’s a marketing tactic that will be in the marketing mix for most small businesses.

I’ll be talking about e-mail marketing on the John Adam Show, Friday at 9:00am, KFNN 1510 in Phoenix, or by podcast at www.thejohnadamshow.com.  We're all about providing tips for small businesses to grow, and marketing in Phoenix.

Here’s a top 10 ‘how to’ list on e-mail marketing for your consideration.

1. Build Your E-mail List, Selectively. Your list should be permission-based. That’s the right thing to do, and you can be shutdown for sending e-mails to people who haven’t asked for it – either by your local internet service provider (ISP) or web hosting company. Start by adding friends, partners and customers to the distribution. Have a sign-up for e-mails and newsletters on your website. Encourge them to forward it to people that can benefit from the information.  Hold contests to ask for e-mails. Rent lists where people have opted-in but never purchase bulk lists on CD-ROM. Double opt-in is becoming a standard here – and this entire subject probably needs a posting all by itself.

2. Address Your Readers’ Needs with Concise Content. It’s all about them and their needs, not you and your products. Talk to their needs and ideas and solutions that address them. They have problems, you have answers. Articulate benefits, not features. Check and double check – no typos and grammatical errors, especially if you’re building a brand of high quality.

3. Pull Readers In, Don’t Push. Take a philosophy of pulling in readers – from your current readers, from contests, from opt-in lists, etc. This approach impacts how you add people to the list (#1) and what content you generate (#2), ie keep it all about adding value to solve critical needs. By the way, most of your marketing materials need to take this same approach!

4. Create Attention-grabbing Headlines. Most people decide in less than a second on whether to read your e-mail. Be interesting without being silly. Keep it short and sweet, and action-oriented. Notice the e-mail headlines that grab your attention, think about why and use those ideas to create yours. In Constant Contact you can see open rates – monitor these and learn what’s interesting for your readers.

5. List the Company Name as “From”. Be clear that the e-mail is from your company by listing the company name in the ‘from’ field. Don’t confuse readers with your name unless you’re the major part of your company’s brand.

6. Keep It One Easy Click to Info. Simple is better. Always keep it one click to any information. People are busy – and so respect that. Monitor what people click on in Constant Contact.

7. Make Your Contact Info Easy to Find. Keep your phone number and e-mail address easy to find. Don’t let people hunt for it.

8. Reassure Readers that Their E-mail Will Not Be Shared. Of course do NOT give anyone your private distribution list, and then let people know that you don’t. That helps reassure them and will keep more people in your list longer.

9. Don’t Blitz. Don’t send out e-mails more than once per week unless that is what your reader wants and expects. Keep it monthly or twice a month, otherwise people will feel spammed and you’ll see a high opt-out rate. With newsletters, once you have a pattern set-up, keep them coming consistently, especially if consistency and quality are part of your brand.

10. Provide Unsubscribe. Always allow readers to unsubscribe. ‘Unsubscribe’ is a requirement for the better services like Constant Contact.

All the best, Doug

Doug Bruhnke
www.growthnation.com  
Scottsdale, AZ USA