Email Marketing that harms

[richards]

I bet you never heard of that?

The truth is that if your email campaigns are not correctly done they will not help with sales and conversions. In-fact it is very likely that it will irritate your subscribers to the point that they leave your list and go somewhere else.

Here are 3 pointers to keep in mind when sending your newsletters.

1. Use list segmentation to target your emails. Don't blast them to every subscriber you have.
2. Keep your email marketing consistent and predictable. There is no excuse for losing touch or breaking trust.
3. Include multi-media along with your email. Email itself is not a marketing cure all.

As a small business owner, you’re always looking for ways to close more sales and grow your business. And by now you’ve either adopted email marketing, or you will shortly. After all, email marketing is easy, fast, inexpensive, and, in most cases, yields the highest ROI. Which is great for you – the small business owner.

[Dave A]

And by now you’ve either adopted email marketing, or you will shortly.

A pretty confident prediction

[richards]

Email marketing is a great tool to use. The problem being that many people fail to use it effectively.

With the shear amount of spam going around these days it is easy to end up in the junk folder.

I think that rather then worrying about "What words not to use..." we should worry more about providing value to the subscriber and engaging them with a trust building relationship.

[tec0]

Well our telecommunications service providers have no problem abusing their customers with thousands of what I now call SMS SPAM. ABSA is also very guilty of this because they will keep on phoning you regardless that you said no about 10 times.

But somehow people know that you have clothing accounts, and they will e-mail or SMS you telling you that to avoid blacklisting you must use their services? It is getting to the point where just closing all your accounts for peace of mind becomes a real practical solution.

Insurance companies are also guilty of this because you get useless e-mails every week. If anything this forced advertisement system makes use of delicate information to feed their greed. That being said identity theft is at all-time high! Somehow these criminals get hold of your ID number, Home address; even your policies and investment information and they will use this as collateral to borrow thousands on your name and run away with the money and the banks don’t care because they can hold you liable....

[Dave A]

My thoughts were more along the lines of the history of telemarketing. There were times when people said much the same thing - "everyone is going to have to be doing it."

It hasn't happened.

[upsinformant]

Thank you for the advice. We were in the habit of blasting our data base until the end of last year, with some nasty responses. It is difficult to wait patiently for leads though.

[OnlinemillionaireSa]

Email marketing tips (part 2)

Thought I'd add a few other insights into your thread on email marketing.

Firstly, you should always have people double opt in to your emails. That means signing up, and then confirming that sign up via an email.

Next, you always need to have an 'unsubscribe' button or link on your emails. Otherwise, they are technically spam.

Email marketing CAN work, but not if you're annoying the people you are sending emails to with a lot of hard sell nonsense. They need to WANT to read your mails, and that means subtlty with marketing messages is key.

I personally think that South Africa is way behind the rest of the world in terms of online business, and as such, we should wait, and catch up before we venture into this kind of tricky territory.

On the other hand, it is a cheap option for marketing, and you don't need anyone's help to do it. A csv file list of contacts, a free download of email marketing pro and a message about covers it! :-)

[Dave A]

a free download of email marketing pro

Now there's one I haven't come across before. If you rate it as any good, please post a link