Saturday, May 20, 2006

The Top 5 Benefits of Email Marketing

by Adrian Mullan

As a small business owner, your success relies on maximising your sales while minimising your expenses. Email allows you to do both.

A good email marketing campaign can help you:

- Increase Your Sales Conversion - Generate Repeat Sales - Up-sell and Cross-sell Products and Services - Gain Valuable Feedback from your Visitors - Drive Web Users to Make Offline Purchases

1. Increase Your Sales Conversion

Regardless of how good your product or service is, in reality most visitors to your site won't convert into sales on their first visit.

In fact, research indicates that it takes the average shopper up to nine visits before they'll make a buying decision. In other words, every effective sales process requires an element of repetition.

Think about the times when you've picked up a new product at the supermarket after seeing it advertised on TV a dozen times. Or a time where you've visited a new local restaurant after driving past it every day on your way to work.

That's repetition in action, but unlike a 'bricks-and-mortar' retail store, there is no 'drive-by' traffic on the Internet. In many cases when someone clicks on the little 'exit' button in the top right hand corner of the screen... they're gone forever.

On top of that, there are numerous ways someone can get distracted while visiting your website. For example, let's say you run a website selling baby prams.

A mother is surfing through your site and finds a product she likes - but before she gets a chance to add the item to her shopping basket ....

- The phone rings - The baby starts crying - She accidentally closes off the web browser - She receives an email that requires attention - A delivery man rings the door bell

Regardless of the reason - if she leaves the site there's a 90% chance you've lost the sale... unless you've managed to capture her email address.

If you've got her email address, you get a second chance. You can email her with:

- Your monthly newsletter - Your free report on 'How to Choose the Perfect Pram' - Information about new models

The bottom line is, capturing an email address gives you a 'Plan B' and allows you to follow-up with someone after they've left your website.

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Thursday, May 18, 2006

Write Email Marketing Messages That Capture Your Audience

by Chet Holcomb

The contents of the email marketing messages can keep your readers focused if they are written and presented well. Since readers like to scan through emails instead of reading them entirely, they understand more when less is explained. So the content should be convincing and well written without any grammatical or spelling mistakes to gain the trust of the potential shoppers.

Be consistent throughout your email message. In other words, mention only a couple key issues surrounding the site page you are leading people to click on. Don't cloud the email body with other sites, products and services. Keep the flow steady and tight, well focused.

Use good navigation on the website and test it BEFORE you send your email. Make sure you can click on the link. And make sure whatever you ask people to do there - be it sign up for an eZine, a report or purchase a new eBook or package - that this process can be done as directed.

6 Tips For Writing Emails For Your audience

1. Subjects given to the emails should impress & invite

2. Focus on keywords to get the attention of your readers.

3. Bulleted or numbered lists make the subject easier to understand.

4, Use plain layman language to present your ideas. Use less words, smaller words and words which that are simple to comprehend.

5. Avoid using puns or metaphors. They tend to leave the reader confused.

6. Try to grab your readers with the conclusion at the start, then sum up at the end.

By giving your readers a well prepared targeted Email message you are writing for them and then see how they will reward you in return.

source : goarticles.com

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

7 Steps for Improving Your Email Marketing

by: Michael Fleischner

The success of your email marketing campaign is often based on a set of complex factors. However, a number of these issues can be proactively managed to ensure an optimized response. When developing your next email campaign, consider the following guidelines.

1. Your list.

Certainly one of the most important aspects of any email marketing campaign, your list is directly correlated to your success. Are your names recent? Have they agreed to be marketed to? Have they shown an interest in products or services similar to your own? Make sure that you are using a house list (names you collected on your own) or have been purchases from a reputable broker.

2. Your subject line.

Getting a user to open your message is paramount any email marketing campaign. The best way to determine the subject line that works best is to break your emails into three random yet equal groups. Measure the response to each email and use the highest producing one as your control. In follow up emails, try to beat the response rate of your control email.

3. Your sender information.

What information appears on the sender line of your email? Will your prospects recognize it? Do they want to hear from you? Often times, emails are deleted without ever being opened due to an indiscernible sender name. Your sender name should be brief and easily understood.

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