Email Marketing: 5 Reasons You Must Start Doing it Today

Do you want to market your business for fractions of a penny per message?

Email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools available to your small business. You can achieve outstanding results with email marketing, while investing only a small amount of time and money. Combine that with the potential to target more precisely than direct mailings, that's a real win for the small business owner.

In tough economic times, it is crucial to continue marketing your business, and maximize the marketing dollars you're spending. Email marketing is a perfect way to keep your business in front of your customers' and prospects eyes!

Sometimes, people unfamiliar with email marketing get nervous about it because the first thing they think about is spam, or they've heard that most people don't open their email, right?

Wrong.

Targeted mailings that pique interest result in high email open rates, and an opportunity to build relationships with your customers and make some sales. As for the spam issue, mailing only to people who have given you permission to do so minimizes the risk of being labeled a "spammer". Using myself as an example, I have mailed thousands of emails to my clients, and prospective clients, and have not had one spam complaint.

Following is a list of five reasons you must start email marketing now!

1. Email marketing is inexpensive.

Email marketing is an affordable way to stretch a tight marketing budget. Unlike direct mail, there is virtually no production, materials or postage expense. Email marketing can cost as little as fractions of a penny per email.

The expenses involved in email marketing involve having a hosted website with email capacity. You may also want to consider subscribing to a list management service, such as Constant Contact or aWeber, to help manage your email campaigns. The fees for this service range from about $15 to $20 per month, which includes unlimited emails.

2. Email marketing is highly targeted.

You can easily segment your email database into different groups, so that your promotions go to individuals most likely to respond to your offer. For example, you may send one offer to existing clients, and send a different one to prospects who've expressed interest in your products or services.

3. Email marketing is proactive.

Email marketing enables you to proactively communicate with your existing customers and prospects, instead of passively waiting for them to return to your website or storefront.

It is a highly effective way to communicate promotional offers, news, seminars, which may result in an increase in sales, drive traffic to your website or store, and develop customer trust and loyalty through relationship building.

Sending out a monthly email campaign will keep your business in front of your customers' and prospects eyes.

4. Email marketing generates an immediate response.

Promotional emails include a call to action that can result in immediate responses. Initial campaign responses generally occur within 48 hours of the time the email campaign is sent; testing and refining your campaigns is immediate. If you use a list management service, you can gauge the open rates of your email campaigns, which provides useful and immediate information you can use to tweak your campaign messages.

5. Email marketing is easy.

The Web-based email marketing products available to small businesses are easy to use. The services available through Constant Contact and aWeber, as well as others, include professional HTML templates, list segmentation and targeting capabilities, as well as automatic tracking and reporting of your email campaign effectiveness, such as for open rates, bounces, and spam reports.

If you're not a "techie", have no fear. You don't need a Webmaster or technical person on staff to handle the development and distribution of your email campaigns.

Email marketing works because it allows precise targeting of your marketing message, it builds loyalty and trust with your customers, it is inexpensive, and best of all, it drives sales. Include email marketing in your arsenal of marketing tools!

Copyright 2008, Bonita L. Richter