Wednesday, August 15, 2012

How Your Business Can Benefit from Email Marketing


Even if you are already running a successful business, you may be surprised to learn your business can benefit greatly from orchestrating an effective email marketing campaign. An email marketing campaign and a number of different advantages including the ability to reach a worldwide audience, a variety of different marketing options at your fingertips and the ability to do a great deal of marketing with very little investment dollars. This article will take a look at all of these different topics to provide insight into how email marketing can benefit your business.

For many business owners one of the most prominent advantages to email marketing is the ability to reach a worldwide audience with minimal effort. While traditional marketing methods such as television advertisements, radio advertisements and advertisements in print media are typically targeted at a rather small geographic area, email marketing can reach a worldwide audience. It is possible to reach an audience of this magnitude with other marketing methods but it would be much more complicated to do and would likely involve launching advertising campaigns in several different markets. This is possible but would require an intense coordination effort and will likely require at least a few staff members to assist you in this effort.

Conversely, the ability to transmit instantly via email can make it much easier to reach target audience members with literally just the click of a mouse. The act of creating the marketing materials for your email marketing campaign is significantly more involved but once this is done reaching members of your target audience is quite simple.

Another advantage to email marketing is there are a multitude of advertising options available to those who wish to utilize this marketing strategy. The most commonly used method of email marketing it so send out group emails with product information and other promotional materials. However, another way to approach the concept of email marketing is to publish and distribute e-newsletters to interested email recipients. An e-newsletter is typically much more in depth than the type of information which would normally accompany a promotional email. These e-newsletters typically feature at least one in depth article as well as a few shorter articles which either offer useful tips or review products. Additionally there may be some graphics, advertising and links include in the layout of the e-newsletter. Email marketing campaigns can also take the place of email correspondence courses which typically focus on one niche subject and feature a few installments which provide detailed information on a specific facet of the niche subject.

Finally email marketing can benefit your business because it is an extremely cost effective method of advertising. When you opt to orchestrate an email marketing campaign you will likely invest money in hiring professionals such as writers and graphic designers to assist you in creating content and an appealing layout for your promotional emails. However, this is typically not more than you would invest in hiring the same type of personnel for an offline marketing campaign. However, unlike offline marketing methods there is not a great deal of cost associated with executing your email marketing campaign. Consider the creation of a television commercial where you will have to pay fees and purchase advertising space to allow your advertising to reach the public. However, when you transmit your advertising via email, there is virtually no cost associated with this transmission. There are of course costs associated with maintaining an Internet connection and retaining employees to send these emails but these costs are minimal and can be considered to be part of normal operating costs.

Getting Help with Your Email Marketing Campaign


Savvy business owners realize the importance of email marketing even if they do not know how to run an effective email marketing campaign. Simply stated this means a business owner may realize it is imperative for him to run an email marketing campaign to help him meet the needs and expectations of his target audience but he may not know how to orchestrate an email marketing campaign which is truly effective. Fortunately for these business owners they do not have to know a great deal about email marketing because there are plenty of Internet marketing consultants who can assist them in planning and running an effective email marketing campaign. This article will provide some tips for finding a consultant to assist you in orchestrating an email marketing campaign.

One of the most important criteria in seeking a consultant to assist you with our email marketing campaign is experience. Specifically it is experience which has resulted in past success. This is important because one of the best indicators of how well a consultant will perform for you is how well they performed in the past. This means if a consultant was able to help a variety of past clients to attain their goals through email marketing, the consultant will likely be able to assist you in the same way.

Another important criterion when hiring a consultant to assist you with your email marketing campaign is the opinions of past clients. Before committing to work with a particular consultant you should request references from past clients. You should not only request these references but also contact each of the past clients provided and question them about their experiences with the consultant. It is important to keep in mind the consultant will likely only provide reference he is confident will offer a positive opinion of his services. However, you can still learn a great deal about the consultant’s style, personality and techniques through these references. This is important because the consultant’s personality as well as his skill and abilities is also very important.

If you do not get along with the consultant and have difficulty talking to him, it can be difficult to work with him. Additionally, it might be hard for you to meet your business related goals because you are likely not providing the consultant with enough information or offering feedback which could help him to adjust his strategies to better meet your expectations. While it is true that skill, knowledge and ability are all important sometimes none of these matter if personality conflicts prevent you and the consultant from communicating adequately. Therefore your personal opinion of the consultant should always be carefully considered before making hiring a consultant.

Although consulting references is a good idea, you should also consider contacting the Better Business Bureau (BBB) as well and also seeking out independent reviews of the consultant you are considering hiring to assist you in your email marketing campaign. The BBB can provide you with a great deal of information regarding the past performance of the consultant. If the consultant has been in business for a number of years and does not have any unresolved complaints with the BBB, this is a good indication the consultant performs adequately and treats clients fairly. Conversely a consultant with a number of unresolved complaints against him is not likely going to be a good choice. Similarly a consultant who has a number of independent reviews raving about the quality of his service is likely a good choice to assist you in your email marketing campaign while a consultant who has a number of poor reviews on the Internet is not really a good choice for assisting you with your email marketing campaign. Likewise, you can assume if past clients were not happy with the services he provided, you will likely also not be happy with these services.