Staying on Top With Email Marketing

Doing business in the 21st century marketplace is easier in some respects-and more challenging in others-than it was in the pre-digital era . What is definitely necessary today, that wasn't not so many years ago, to execute a strong marketing strategy is to assert your presence in the online world. Though print and other "physical" marketing methods still fulfill a central role in most business's overall strategy, online marketing is increasingly conquering a prioritized position within the grand scheme of marketing techniques. Chief among the online strategies for marketing is email marketing: the email campaign is the best way to enter into the consideration of potential or habitual customers on a regular basis, at a fraction of the cost of non-electronic methods. So, crafting a wise email marketing strategy is an important process for any business today; following we'll take a look at some good pointers for setting up a good campaign.

The initial phase of an email campaign can be a little intimidating, as the process of merely acquiring email addresses to send your content to can overwhelm newbies. It is hard to swallow the idea that your mailing list will start absolutely empty, but if you want to start out on the right foot, then swallow hard and put some work into getting contact info the right way. Make sure that the opt-in link on your site is extremely prominent to fatten your mailing list up to a decent level (what exactly that is depends on your business, your niche, and your ambition; some businesses are content with a hundred or two, while larger businesses are sending to several thousand). Remember to have a double opt-in process, to verify the willingness of your contacts to receive your content.

After succeeding in putting together a decent list, you need to make sure you get to know your readers. Personal information is a marketer's elixir, and as such should be treated with the utmost respect and professionalism. Keep contacts comfortable by implementing a strong, ethical privacy policy, and make sure they can find that policy without too much digging in your site. Find out what your readers' ages, hobbies, jobs, and interests are if you can, and utilize the information you harvest to be able to supply even more relevant material to each recipient.

Relevance is a maxim in the field of email marketing. You will give off an air of incompetence or aloofness (or worse) if you are sending completely irrelevant material. If your lists are opt-in, as they should be, then you should already be well on your way to keeping things relevant; but don't take anything for granted, and keep yourself up to date about your readers' wants with occasional requests for feedback or opening up public voting on certain elements of your marketing. Don't become entrenched in any one style, as the market is a metamorphic beast that punishes those who get too cozy.

Staying ahead of the competition means remaining closer to potential customers than the competition, and if you properly execute your email campaign, you will be able to do just that.

Consider iContact for your email marketing campaigns. It's a powerful platform that generates sophisticated results with the simplicity of a point-and-click interface. iContact is your best choice for email marketing software.