by Don Kyle
Can business owners effectively market their products and services through Email Marketing?
Yes, if the proper strategies and tools are used.
As with any marketing strategy you decide to use, you must know your target market — composition, size, location, demographics, etc.
We will discuss some of the key issues you should address before you begin.
1. What is the geographic range for your business? Determine the boundaries of your prospective customers. For example, are they within 10 miles of your business or can you sell your products and services to anyone, anywhere?
2. Are there enough prospective customers in your target market who are internet savvy? With a little research, you can see how many email users are in your target market.
3. Will you purchase an email list or will you build your own? If you build your own by having existing customers and their friends sign up, you will be using permission based marketing, whereby the members on your list have asked to be sent your emails. On the other hand, if you purchase a list, you will be sending out emails to those you expect will respond and opt-in for future emails. You must be very careful with this approach as you want to avoid being flagged as “spam.”
4. Will you purchase an email tool such as Constant Contact or iContact, or will you manually send emails through your own email service? Email tools vary in price and can provide you with all kinds of features that can simplify list maintenance, scheduling, design, etc.
5. Design your emails in manner that will allow the highest open and response rates. Any email you send out is an advertisement for your business. Will the recipients bother to open it, read it and then take action?
6. Establish goals for your Email Marketing campaign. Will your emails be designed to attract new customers? Send promotions to existing customers? Provide useful information that will generate more customers? How often will emails be sent? Establish a plan that will allow you to meet your goals.
These are just some of the basics you should consider to determine if Email Marketing can be a good fit for you.
If you would like assistance promoting and growing your business, feel free to contact me. Additionally, feel free to submit questions about growing your business and I will address them in future articles.
Don Kyle is the CEO and Founder of Small Bizz MBA, a company which assists businesses with their marketing, branding and advertising needs. (404) 580-6331, dkyle@smallbizzmba.com
