Online marketing solutions

The digital age has changed the way we do business.  People live on email, social networks, and Starbuck’s coffee.  Our mornings begin and end with the Internet.  But something interesting is taking place.  I wonder if you have noticed the growing desire and compulsive need being expressed – people want to have personal conversations with total strangers.

Privacy and anonymity seem to be a passing fad, a priority of the past.  Guards are down as people share their most private experiences, thoughts, and relationships to a global market.  The need to talk, question, and comment, may sometimes borderline obsessive behavior, but is actually a blessing in disguise for those email marketers who integrate their marketing campaigns with social media marketing.

As we engage our clients in blogs, twitter, and facebook, we want to have a discourse in meaningful and influential dialogues, furthering the discussions on a positive and informative note.  Our strategies are to develop trust and respect for our company, product, or service.  Without which there is no loyalty or repeat business.  But what happens when a negative comment is made on a blog or email communication?  Does it spiral out of control?  The need to learn how to respond in an open, unmediated arena will reduce that fear.  Learning to adapt to the continuing dynamics and constant challenges of the social Web is a daily experience.  Our attitude towards any criticism, however, should be to learn and grow from every experience.

Is the Comment True?

Whether a negative comment comes from a colleague, friend, relative or customer online we must ask ourselves is it true?  Don’t go into combat mode, as if you are being assaulted.  For some of you, honesty has always been an uncomfortable and unpleasant experience when dealing with negative remarks.  The world is filled with dishonesty.  Salespeople lie about their products, employees make excuses for their mistakes, and customer service people lie about when the product was shipped, and on and on.  It seems that telling a lie is easier than admitting a fault or product defect.  So we practice this thinking when dealing with our clients online.  But, that is not the way to go.

Having smart conversations with people who have something important to say, is being wise.  Productive criticisms about your product, service, website, or support, can only lead to improvement on your end and trust on theirs.  Being honest is being vulnerable.  But how can we develop loyalty and trust, if we cannot institute that in our own actions and lives?

Remain honest and straightforward. Most of your clients have been around the block.  They know when they are not receiving honest, straightforward responses.  Don’t try to impress, but address their issues honestly and respectably.

Be a proactive communicator. Keep your communications alive.  Many email marketers send communications when a new project or client has come on board.  Make sure you are both on the same page.  Never assume.  Question what is not clear, or what you might have missed.  Strive for excellence.  Email your client on a periodic basis.  Let them know they are very much alive in your thinking and planning.  Even if it seems redundant, keep the good vibrations going out to them.

Communications are a lifeline to business and client alike.  Honest communications today, build loyalty and trust offering a better bottom line tomorrow.

Whether for your own company or the one you work for, beginning your adventure in the social media world of digital communications is a good decision.

Social Media has become one of the most aggressive ways to promote your site or business, increasing back  links, resulting in additional website traffic.  For any business counting their costs, while weathering a bad economy, social media has become a lifesaving path.

Social media is all about conversation.  It is a very appealing way to create relationships online – giving a face and voice to small and large businesses.  This strategy can easily add to an email marketing campaign, whose name and brand begin to take on a more personal and widespread public recognition.

Beginning your SM Campaign Strategy – Before jumping in head first, you need to know what tools you will be using, as well as the information you want to share.  As with any email marketing campaign, research, time, and strategy must always come first.  Here are a few tips:

Preparation and Research

• Create an audience persona. What does your target audience look like?  As an email marketer, demographics is a survival word.  Get an image of your audience, age, gender, spending and surfing habits, what sites they visit, and how they use the Web.  This forms your foundation.

• Check out your competition. Find out what your competition is doing in the social media arena.  What are they talking about, what are they writing about.  See what kind of responses they are getting.

• Policy Guidelines. Make sure your company has a social media policy in place.  Guidelines are needed for any employee that engages online conversations representing your organization.

• The Designated Blogger. It is very important to designate a blogger.  Whether you hire a freelance blogger, or give someone in your organization this opportunity, this is a serious commitment.  Blogging needs to be consistent, live conversations need to be monitored.  Give this serious thought – you need the right person creating the right voice and conversations.

• Goals and Meetings. Have your plans and strategies clearly defined.  Make time for follow-up meetings on the outcome and results.  This is a learning process.  You can easily modify ideas and content along the way.

• Interesting and Relevant. Whatever message you put out there, cannot be taken back.  People are stressed, quickly skimming through titles and bits of conversations, as they surf.  Take the time to surf around at what your target audience is talking about on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.  Do not let stress or urgency make your efforts sloppy.

Don’t forget to have fun. Social conversations should have some lightness about them.  We are not engaging in metrics or behavioral sciences.  Bring a bit of fun into this.   The very fact of the enormous proliferation of social media, proves that people want a more personal relationship and voice with those they do business with or buy from.

Here are some of the top SM sites in which to get started – Click Me!

As great as a value added email marketing campaign can be, planning its content, timing, and target is just as important to its success.  The proper approach to any email campaign should start with a well thought-out plan, which requires a little more time and effort then most e-marketers realize.  Here are some points that you need to cover when planning your email campaigns:

1.   Permission-based mailing list. Unless you have the recipient’s permission (op-in), you are trespassing and may be considered sending spam, which is against the CAN-SPAM Act.  Know the spam laws.  Stay out of trouble.

2.    Content is still king.  Your content should be relevant and directed at an intelligent audience.  Your message should be clear, sharing the essential facts in carefully thought out wording.  The structure of your message should be easy to parse.  Remember to give your message a personal voice.  You need to provide them with something that they desire.  Your content should hold their attention long enough for you to market yourself successfully.

3.    Grammatical errors. The amount of errors found within many emails can be quite surprising.  Misspelled words and poor grammar convey a lack of professionalism.  Rushing to get a campaign out, may cost you the loss of clients.  Take the time to read your email campaign over several times.  Have someone else read it as well.  Don’t let pressure cause you to be sloppy.

4.   Are your graphics in overdrive? Too many cooks spoil the soup; too many graphics spoil your message.  Your graphics should compliment not overshadow your text.  Keep your message simple and easy to parse.  Oversized graphics can cause a slow download, causing impatience in the recipient

5.    A clear and precise call to action. Don’t make your clients perform and jump through hoops.  If you want someone to subscribe to an e-mail newsletter or sign up for updates about your product or service, do not make it difficult for them.  Filling out endless online forms, clicking through multiple pages, is annoying.  Even if someone wants your product, you may push them over to your competitor.

6.    Your “from” and “subject” lines are crucial to your email campaign.   Why?  Because that is what your recipient will see in their in-box before opening your email.  If you are not recognized in the “from” line, recycle bin or spam here you come.  The “from” line should represent your company or newsletter name that they signed up with.

Subject lines should be catchy and short. Keeping your subject line down to 50 characters or less is the general rule.  If your subject line is too long or cut off, it may quickly end in the trash bin.  Shorter lines help optimize your open rates.  Remember, subject lines need to be relevant to the content.

7.    Do you have a landing page? Are you sending people to your homepage?  Not good.  A targeted direct email campaign needs an accompanying landing page.  Creating key pages that people land on when they click a link from your e-mail campaign is very important.  Make sure that page has all the relevant information pertaining to the product or service you are marketing.  Giving a prospect all the information needed, on that page, enables them to be able to make a quick response.

8.    What’s in it for them? Don’t focus on telling your readers how great your business is, and the fabulous products you sell.  All they want to know is how does this benefit them?  Focus on what they want and need.  It’s all about them, not you.

9.    Using Social Media. If you have a Twitter or Facebook account, you can let clients know to join and follow you, as you use that media to announce your specials and discounted pricing.  That makes you cool, and gets your name out there as well.

10.   The Three T’s – Test – Test – Test. Before you send out your campaign, do a sampling on a small number of people.  See what the response is.  How well was it received?  Better to delay a campaign, than to court a disaster.

There is still an important point to add.  Make sure that your e-campaign is targeted to the right audience.  An email campaign can only be effective when the right campaign, goes to the right people, with the right message.  Don’t let all your hard work go down the drain.  Make each campaign work for you.

Creating a professionally targeted campaign is not easy.  It takes planning, thought, and strategy.  Don’t let time pressure you.  Your campaign needs to be professional and relevant.  Do you have everything covered?

Behavioral marketing gives the e-marketer the ability to accurately segment and target your audience by present and past online behavior.  Utilizing this method when creating your email campaigns, can significantly change the way you plan and send your emails in the future.

“eMarketer projects that behaviorally targeted ad spending will reach $4.4 billion by the end of 2012.”

Behavioral targeting is predicated to become more widespread, resulting in better customer experiences, as they are targeted with more relevant information.

“Using behavioral targeting with email is not a new idea,” says Shar VanBoskirk, senior analyst with Forrester Research in Cambridge, MA. “It is something that good, smart marketers have been tuned into for several years: understanding that the activities within an email are good clues to the types of offers that would be useful to send in a subsequent message. In fact, email used BT even before other types of online advertising did.”

E-mail campaigns need to evolve.  Irrelevant email campaigns must change focus and deliver messages that their recipients want to see, hear, and read.  What does this mean?  Direct email marketing campaigns need to make use of behaviorally triggered e-mail in response to customer actions.  Content needs to be more personalized and much more dynamic.  E-newsletters need to have more valuable and interesting content, not becoming a replacement for an autoresponder type message.  All e-newsletter content needs planning and purpose.

Implementing Behavioral Marketing in our Email Targeted Campaigns:

Broadcast email:  According to Jupiter Research “when marketers actively target their email campaigns to specific behavioral and demographic characteristics, they can produce more than 18 times the profits that broadcast messages produce.  Think of the effect on your ROI?

Re-marketing: Marketers can easily track when an email is opened, what specific pages are explored, what links are clicked on, or any combination of actions and responses.  This important and recorded data can then used to create dynamic and strategic behaviorally targeted email.

Email Address Lists:
By collecting and utilizing specific and accurate information from your email address lists, you can send relevant offers and information based on a user’s preferences and prior purchases.  Instead of just depending upon your demographic data, you can now deliver unique offers and information that they want, according to their behavioral patterns.  This is differentiating the differences in specific actions that have happened, opposed to behavioral, demographical theory.

Actions are Key – Don’t Assume

Demographics are important but cannot be relied upon as the sole means to understanding your audience.  For instance, if you are selling perfume, and have targeted just women, within a certain age range, and location, you have automatically left out the all the men who buy perfume for their wives or girlfriends.  When the holidays come, men buy perfume, flowers, chocolate for various reasons and various people.  You can now see the implications and importance of targeting behavior and actions.

Up-selling to the Full Person

Combine past and present behavior.  Using the above approach let the actions speak louder than statistics.  Using past purchase behavior coupled with recent purchase activity, gives you a better and wider scope of understanding the entire person.  The more you know about the interests and overall purchases of anyone, the better chance you have of sending them a campaign that speaks directly to them.

Behavioral targeting is an ongoing process.  Remember, the more accurate the campaign, the better chance you have to convert browsers to clients.

Google has given us a brand new toy, Google Buzz.  Google Buzz is a brand new way to have conversations about things that interest you, while enabling you to share updates such as photos and videos with family and friends.  There is no installation.  You simply open up your Gmail account, and there it is.  At least, that was my experience.  No warning, just a cute little colorful icon waiting to be pushed.  Sharing information is faster than ever.   A possible new email marketing tool?

All responses will be sent by Buzz directly to your inbox – in actual real-time.  Buzz is also available on certain cellphones and smartphones, so you don’t have to be in front of your computer to create or read a Buzz.

Google Buzz  seems to be Google’s strongest and boldest attempt to get into and build a strong and popular social network.  They have taken and implemented the best of the most powerful social media programs like Twitter and other social services, combining the most popular elements together into one aggressive package.

Importing into Buzz
Do you use Flickr, Picasa, or Twitter?  Now you can automatically have those items imported into your stream.  Buzz will even recommend items you might like based on your friends’ preferences based on their activities.  Instead of building their own social network from the beginning, Buzz is now an integrated key part of their Gmail, with its own distinct icon tab underneath the inbox.

Even though thousands use Gmail, there are still plenty of people without Gmail accounts.  Will Buzz be enough to entice new users to sign up and start using an email service just because of Buzz?

A Bit more Complicated
Twitter is so simple.  If you have created a public account, anyone can see and follow your tweets if they have decided to follow you. It’s as simple as that.  With Buzz, it is not that simple because there are public and private buzzes.  Buzz will create plans for business and educational users.  So public buzzes may only be available within your particular organization or school.  You will have the option for a private buzz to designated individuals within your network.  Remaining flexible, it becomes a bit more complicated.

When users were asked why they are using Buzz, here are some of their reasons:
1.    Easy to use
2.    Simple interface
3.    No setup – Automatically embedded into Gmail.
4.    Users feel they get a wider and quicker global connection

How will G-mailers respond?  Will we buy into this quick sharing of information and brand new communication tool for social media?  Google believes we will.

If you would like to see a video introduction, along with a more detailed explanation of Google Buzz, please go to Google’s Official Blog about Google Buzz

What is Email Harvesting? Email harvesting is the process Where your email address lists are obtained, without your permission or knowledge.  They are used in various bulk and direct email marketing campaigns, usually labeled as spam.  Through spiders, spammers have obtained programs which look through web pages for email addresses, as well.

How does this affect you?

Email address harvesting is not a good thing.  Once your client’s email address is stolen and is now in the hands of a spammer,  your client will get flooded with spam and trash – almost immediately.

You could even be held liable, especially if your email address is displayed somewhere in that spammer’s email.  Your client will think it is from you and soon you may be trashed, and spammed.  The implications and results will be chilling.  Imagine  having to cancel and create a brand  new business email address?  Think of all the clients, associates, and prospects who are already signed up and linked with an email address taken years to build!

Why are they doing this?
Their one goal – to sell something or to conduct some illegal activity benefiting them with some monetary gain, all at your expense.  You have inadvertently become a target of their bad intentions now that they have your your email address list.  Some, just collect email address lists and sell them to marketing companies.  Pretty upsetting don’t you agree?

Reunion.com – Reunion.com dupes new members into signing up by sending them an email that pretends to be from an acquaintance who’s been looking for them (on Reunion.com, naturally). After signing up, the site extracts your contacts and immediately begins spamming them to join by sending out a similar email.

More and more companies have been considering engaging in marketing campaigns that involve “address book scraping, (address book harvesting)”  in which a user is asked to import his contacts (i.e., the e-mail addresses he has stored in his e-mail account address book) into his social networking Web site or other online service so that a message can be sent to those contacts inviting them to join the social network or to participate in a joint offering of the company and its partner.  In some cases, the user is asked to provide the username and password for his e-mail account so that the import can be done transparently.  Read Full Article

Legitimate sites use deceptive email marketing tactics as well.
Upon my research, I came across an article about a site known worldwide called “Classmates.com” which promises to hook you up with former classmates who just might be looking for you, if you upgrade to their gold membership.

Classmates.com Agrees to $9.5 Million False Advertising Settlement
Classmates.com — the website that promises to reunite people with their mullet-haired friends of youth — has agreed to pay out a $9.5 million settlement for a lawsuit dating back to 2008 accusing the company of “false advertising” through “deceptive” marketing e-mails.

OK – You  have convinced me – What should I do?
First, for those of you who want all the technical ways to protect your email lists online, please see:  Effect Methods of Protection.

As for me, I am a simple kind of gal living by the rules of  “make it simple – PLEASE!”.  After my research in this topic, one thing is for sure.  I will never import my address list anywhere, on any website, EVER AGAIN!

If you know a better way, please share.

As e-mail marketers know, life is constantly changing.  The ever growing global population relies more and more for its knowledge and communication on the Internet, as its heartbeat and sustenance.  From interest to need, from hobby to livelihood the years have produced great change in the world around us.

A large part of that change includes our prospects and clients that we target and communicate with through our direct e-mail campaigns.  We spend many hours compiling data, information, stats and studies in order to create compelling and valuable targeted messages, worth opening and reading.

E-Mail Overload

As we plot and plan our next e-campaign strategies, we join hundreds of others desiring the same goals – walking the same path – turning prospects into clients, turning clients into repeat sales.  Daily, all of our in-boxes are constantly being bombarded not only with legitimate mail from our friends and family, but with the latest announcements of sales and specials from so many other companies.  Illegal spammers create stress and annoyance, affecting even those whose campaigns are legitimate and anticipated.

With all our good efforts, the surveys still assure us, that people are going to unsubscribe at some point in time.  Marriage, divorce, children and relocation, play a large role.  Our e-mail preferences change along with our new perceptions of e-mail and its relevancy to our daily lives.

Just give me the facts and stats

So what can we do?  Can we change or influence the number of unsubscribers?  Yes we can.  Knowing all of this is important, but applying these truths, must be done knowing the facts.  If we have to invest our time and money, making costly decisions and revisiting our strategies, we need to know that we are not wasting our time on someone’s opinion.  Here are some of those facts from MarketingSherpa.  Make it work for you.

Why do consumers unsubscribe? According to MarketingSherpa, people unsubscribe for the following reasons:

Relevancy:  One Size Does Not Fit All.  If we do our due diligence with our e-mail list demographics, it is obvious.  Each campaign must have its own targeted segment.  Age, gender, and profession are strong influences in a purchase decision. Our offers must fit their interests and lifestyle.  Make your campaigns meaningful and valuable.

E-Mail frequency:  How many e-mails constitute too many?  The consensus seems to indicate that keeping in touch at least monthly to maintain a dialogue with your clients is good.  The most important rule is to keep your communications fresh, relevant, and timely.

E-mail bankruptcy: (a form of e-mail mental breakdown.) There are consumers that have reported they are just overwhelmed and overloaded in their in-boxes.  They have had enough.  In one swoop, they decide to unsubscribe to every mailing list that they see.

Wrong person – Wrong timing: Maintaining up-to-date database lists are the key to successful campaigns.  Using accurate metrics and stats will quickly help you see how each e-campaign performed and who your active and inactive clients may be.  Keeping accurate and regularly updated demographic e-mail lists, helps modify, target and optimize all future campaigns.

Social Media:  The report states that a small percentage of people have unsubscribed and are using text messages and social media to remain updated.  Maybe it’s time for a e-mail marketing coupon campaign?

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  Here are a few creative suggestions:

1. Reward your customers: Give them a special discount or bonus on their next purchase.
2. Awaken the Inactive Buyer: You can send a special sale to those who have bought in the past, and have not returned.
3. Prospects: Offer a special discount for first time subscribers.
4. Valuable Tips: We are all experts with loads of experience in some area.  Whatever your service or product is, offering some helpful tips or a “How to do” tutorial.  Free is always good – when it is relevant and meets a practical need

Do not fear the unknown little grasshopper.  Dare to be different and innovative.  Reach out to your mail recipients and ask them why they unsubscribed or stopped purchasing your product.  Listen and learn.  Everyone has an opinion and appreciates being heard.



I watch Fox News every evening.  OK I am addicted, I admit it.  Unfortunately, the economic news has not been very uplifting lately.  Every economist seems to have a different take on what we are experiencing.  But what we can ALL agree on is this one simple statement – the economy is not good.  Kind of depressing?  For small businesses or email and internet marketers that advertise and sell online, there is a light at the end of the tunnel – the news is not so dark.

This will be a good time to take a look at what people are talking about on the Social Networks.  Surf around on Facebook and Twitter.  Google blog posts for subjects that deal with your market niche.  What are the problems and concerns that are being voiced?

Offer Solutions that Meet a Need

Can you offer solutions and help?  Start spreading your internet voice and solve some problems for your clients and prospects that the current economy has created.   Are you up to and ready for a challenge?

Everyone loves tips on how to save money and time.  In our years of  experience and just living, all of us are experts in something.  Sharing your expertise and experience, without an agenda to sell, just might bring in an unexpected return.

The Economy is not a Crutch or an Excuse for Failure

Bad news is everyone and is affecting everyone.  It is times like this that you must rally within yourself and start your creative juices flowing.  Your goal is to be a catalyst – continuing to create interest in your services and products.

People are under a great deal of stress these days.  They are worried about their futures and hoping for better days.  So, here are some helpful suggestions to get you on a positive path towards creating  more opportunities to be seen and get noticed in a difficult economy:

Existing Customers are Crucial for Sustainability

All B2B and B2C businesses know that turning prospects into clients take time, planning, and trust.  But once you have created that trust, it is priceless.  The reason we exist is not because of a one-time sale, closeout, or discounted item.  The reason we can pay our bills is totally dependent upon our existing and repeat customers.

We all know how important building our customer base is.  But keeping your customers happy and satisfied is even more important.

Showing your appreciation to them, in tangible ways, will not only give them a lift, but keep you and your brand alive and in the front of their minds.

The Element of Surprise

Do you have a newsletter that you send out?  If you don’t, this would be an opportune time to do so.  How about offering a special deal or discount, just to your loyal repeat clients?  In a bad economy, any kind of valuable offer will be appreciated.

Reach out in a personal way.  Bring people in behind the scenes of your company.  An event, a promotion, or just some interesting comments from you on a personal note.  Let people know your voice.

Whenever I see a movie that I love, I always look for a special presentation called:  “Behind the Scenes” -  of that particular movie.  I find it fascinating to be able to find out what went on during the filming.  The stories are so interesting.  You start to feel that you know the actors and directors personally.

Be Generous in an Ungenerous Age

Donate some of your specials to a worthwhile charity.  People tend to have more respect for those organizations that give to worthwhile causes.  Don’t be surprised how wonderfully that will affect you and all those who work for you.

Create a Team Spirit

The most underutilized part of an organization is its employees.  Mangers and executives tend to forget that the “underlings”  are on the same ship, weathering the same storm and trust me, they don’t want to drown.

Call for a power meeting in your board or conference room.  Shock your entire staff  by sending out an internal email request, asking for some creative ideas for your marketing mix.  This is a win-win.  You will probably get some interesting responses but most of all, you have let them know that they are integral to your survival, and you have just created genuine loyalty and trust within your own organization.

Reality Check - Get out There
The same old just won’t work anymore.  Use this time to re-think, re-plan and  re-structure.  Dare to be different, and determine to be creative.  This is a good time to not only step out of the box, but to break the box open, completely.

We are living in a tech savvy existence.  Our day-to-day activities revolve and depend upon our ever-growing digital world.  This is a perfect setting for increasing our email campaigns.

From the very onset of the first email campaign, email marketing is and continues to be one of the most important tools for B2B and B2C email marketers in the arena today.  It is still the fastest and most cost effective strategy, sending out hundreds of messages to our lead databases in today’s global market.

The Internet is a main source of survival, not only for the seller, but for the consumer, as well.  Worldwide communication, for the most part, emanates from the Internet.  Our correspondence, conversations, and documentation seem to be headed towards a paperless society.  Every area of our life is affected.  The digital innovators of this age continue creating more tools and applications, with a focused dependency upon technology, not only for business, but for our pleasures and enjoyments, as well.

One Size Does Not Fit All

I am sure you have seen this famous tag (One Size Fits All) on many items of clothing.  Whether you are a size 4, 6, 8 or 12, they are telling you, one size fits all.  It denies our physical uniqueness, size, and preference in one’s appearance and choices.

This type of thinking may have crept into our email marketing campaigns.  Demographic studies show this just can’t be true.  Our target segments are constantly changing in age, marital status, preferences, physical locations, and professions.  Sending out generic mass emails is ineffective and may cause the loss of subscribers in the process.

I remember joining a cable company.  Spoke to and met the representative.  Long conversations and then we closed the sale.  Many times after that, I kept receiving mass  notifications under my door to buy their plan and get better deals.   They were generic advertisements absolutely nullifying my being a client and having met with and reached out to their client representative.  It really made me angry.

Generic Emails do not Differentiate between Clients and Prospects

•    Generic emails give a strong disconnect message to the recipient of any prior buying or contact history.  It is as if it never happened.  They are impersonal.
•    Generic emails discount the tracking history and stat results of prior campaigns.  You are shooting in the dark.
•    Generic emails fail to create value and interest, since they are not based on demographics or history.
•    Generic emails do not create, nurture or encourage a personal dialogue or feedback.
•    Generic emails show a lack of appreciation and value to your clients.
•    Generic emails make everyone a prospect, never acknowledging the client.
•    Generic emails create irrelevant messages which can lead to unsubscribers, spam, complaints or inactivity.

As smart marketers, we need to follow the formulas that work – sending the right message to the right subscriber at the right time.  Our clients are the reason we exist.  They need to feel special, and more importantly, acknowledged and appreciated.

This type of parsing can only come from demographics, stats, and history.  Without careful segmentation, you can push away good customers, who just might take their purchase potential with them somewhere else.

Remember: Prospects and clients need different email campaign strategies.  Generic email campaigns tend to make everyone a prospect, resulting in ineffective and irrelevant messages and unwanted results.

During an economic recession, very few businesses have the option to expand their budgets. Most businesses are strapped for cash and are cutting all extraneous expenditures wherever possible. This being said, it’s hard to imagine any business being able to spend as much as they want on a marketing campaign. I know every business dreams of having TV spots during the Superbowl reaching millions of potential customers in 30 seconds, but chances are that your business can’t afford it.

But without marketing, how will you continue to stay in business? You can’t just rely on your old customers, especially if you’re a new business because you don’t have any old faithful customers. No matter what, you have to continue to maintain some kind of marketing campaign. Email marketing is an effective way to market your products, services, and/or business to those old faithful customers and to potential customers as well.

Why use email marketing?

There are so many reasons to use email marketing, especially in a time of financial crisis. One reason being, that it’s just cheaper. Sending emails into the inboxes of all of your customers and potential customers is much cheaper than using snail mail. Direct mail involves extraneous costs for paper and postage stamps. Let’s not forget that it is much less effective than email marketing.

Email marketing lets you directly communicate with your customers, instead of sitting and waiting for them to get in touch with you. It reminds them of your presence and what you have to offer them. You can your customers updated, entice them with sales and post direct links for certain services or products that you know they’ll be interested in. The truth is that Google does this all the time. They watch and take note of all of our activity on the web, and then they begin to advertise certain products that they know we’re interested in.

With an email marketing campaign you can see how effective your advertising. You can see how many people click on your links through CTRs (Click Through Rates) and want your services. And you’ll see more traffic to your website. The nicest thing is that email marketing is fairly simple and there are products all over which will help you set up your campaign and continue tracking it to see how effective it is.