Email marketing involves a great deal more than sales messages. It's multi-faceted and multi-talented. And if you enjoy thinking outside the box, it's a marketing tool you can have fun with, developing your own email marketing ideas.
In the meantime, some of these email marketing ideas might be obvious, some might surprise you:
1. Get higher response rates by using email lists that reach small but very specific groups of people, tailoring messages to their particular concerns, interests and desires.
2. Stay in touch with the people more likely than any other group to buy your goods and services - your existing customers - by capturing their email address (with permission, of course) at the time of sale.
3. Build your own email list of potential customers by starting a free email newsletter (ezine) on a subject closely related to your products and expertise.
4. Promote your email newsletter - and get links to your website - by submitting details of your newsletter to ezine directories.
5. Generate long-term sales and minimise unsubscribe rates by providing a consistently relevant and useful newsletter that builds trust and loyalty.
6. Build an email list of potential customers quickly and easily by adding a sign-up page to your website offering details by email of special offers and new products - simpler and less time-consuming than writing a newsletter.
7. Get inbound links and traffic to your website by submitting articles to article-sharing directories used as a source of content by other email newsletters and websites.
8. Get inbound links as well as sales by advertising in web-based ezines which have back issues - including your ad and a link to your website - available to view online.
9. Save money and increase response rates in more expensive marketing channels by using low-cost email marketing options to test your ads (e.g., ezine classified ads are similar in size and format to Google AdWords.)
10. Expand your email list and generate sales by offering a genuinely useful series of emails (e.g. a "mini-course") to be sent by autoresponder over a period of time, promoting a relevant product or service in each message.
11. Maximise the reach and potential of email promotions by inviting recipients to "forward this message" to friends/colleagues.
12. Build brand image and awareness by including a simple statement about your business and how it differs from the competition in each and every email.
These are just a few ideas for email marketing, designed to show how email marketing can achieve much more than sales.
Email marketing is also highly affordable. In fact, all the above ideas can be put into action for free. So, feel free to make the most of them, and encouraged to develop your own email marketing ideas.
Caroline Mackenzie is a successful marketing professional, online and off. Her articles focus on small and home businesses, providing practical advice and ideas for success. She is also co-owner of LucentData.com, a source of free and low-cost tools for online business owners. You can visit her site at http://www.lucentdata.com
About the Author
Caroline Mackenzie is a successful marketing professional. Her articles focus on small and home business, providing practical advice and ideas for success. She is owner of LucentData.com, a leading source of free and low-cost Resale and Private Label Rights products for online business owners.
