How to Use Email As a Viral Marketing Tool

[derekjay]

Hi Guys

Here's a little article I wrote on email marketing - hope you enjoy!

How To Use Email As A Viral Marketing Tool

The use of email as a marketing tool has been long used and abused by internet marketers around the globe. This has become such a problem that development of spam blockers and similar applications has become an industry itself. But how can you, as a legitimate (and considerate) marketer harness the power of email marketing in their business?

First things first - build up an opt-in email list and send a weekly, biweekly or monthly newsletter with useful content. The keyword here is "useful content" - no-one is interested in reading about which employees had their birthday this month, or that you've just bought new office stationery..

Use your newsletter to provide informative and useful information, such as "How to XYZ" or "What to do when XYZ happens". If the reader finds this information useful, there's a good chance they will forward it on to other prospects, who will then also visit your site and join your mailing list. Your email list of prospects then grows virally with little effort on your part.

Freebies, competitions and giveaways are always popular newsletter tactics. Always design your newsletters with the reader in mind - think along the lines of "why should they bother reading my email when they have a million other things to do". This will get you into the mind-set of the email marketer...

Please note that, by law, every email sent to your list needs to have an "unsubscribe" link or method by which the user can unsubscribe from the list. It is illegal to send any sort of bulk email without this feature.

There are two ways two create and manage an effective email list or database:

• Offline - This means using your email program (Outlook, etc) to email your list. This is however very inefficient and unreliable. You will also use a lot of internet bandwidth in the process and end up getting blacklisted as a spammer in most cases (due to the difficulty of unsubscribing).
• Online - This entails using an online bulk emailing service. These companies will host your database, manage unsubscribes (as required by law), and send your email newsletters on time, every time. I highly recommend going this route as it is the only viable option in the long run.

Two bulk email service providers that have proven to be very reliable are:

•Aweber - The leader's in bulk emailing, with pricing options from $1 USD per month. They are very user-friendly and offer a wide range of email templates to get you started.
•TouchBasePro - A South African based emailing company. Good for starting out from about R100 per month, but not a lot of customizability or email templates.


If you remember to always consider your email content from the reader's point of view, and dedicate your campaigns towards useful content, you can be assured of great success using email marketing as a viral tool.