Monday, September 20, 2010

Organizing Your Email Marketing Campaign

If you have recently decided to try implementing an email marketing campaign, you can congratulate yourself on becoming involved in one of the most effective types of online marketing for your business. While many business owners tend to shy away from email marketing campaigns because they believe these campaigns are always viewed as spam, others realize the importance of this type of advertising and are willing to spend a great deal of time and effort into organizing their email marketing campaign. These business owners will likely find they are able to enjoy an advantage over their competitors who do not take the time to implement an email marketing campaign. This article will describe the steps necessary to organize an effective email marketing campaign.

One of the first elements you should consider when you make the decision to start an email marketing campaign is the type of information you wish to include in your emails to potential clients. This is very important because the information you provide will help your email recipients to determine whether or not they think your products or services are worthwhile. You can include a variety of information in marketing emails. This may include, but is not limited to, full length informative articles, short articles enticing readers to visit your website for more information, links to other websites which may be of interest to your readers, links to your own website and even advertisements for your products or services as well as other products or services your customers may appreciate.

Once you determine the type of content you wish to incorporate into your email marketing, it is time to consider how you want to structure your email marketing efforts. Two of the most common structures include an informative email with subtle advertising or an in depth e-newsletter with a wealth of information as well as some subtle advertising and even some graphics. Deciding on the format of the emails you will be sending out are important because they will dictate the staff you will need to assist you in your email marketing effort. You will require the assistance of a professional writer to assist you with the content in either emails or e-newsletters but if you opt for an e-newsletter you should also consider hiring a graphic artist to assist you in designing an attractive layout and creating graphics as needed to create an appealing layout for your e-newsletter.

Next you should consider how you plan to create an email distribution list. This is important because simply purchasing an email list is not likely to be effective. You may reach hundreds, thousands or even millions of Internet users by sending emails to all of the members of this email list but there is no guarantee any of them will have an interest in your products or services. However, if you build your own email list of previous customers who have specifically requested additional information as well as potential customer who have also requested additional information you will have a well formulated list which includes mostly members of your target audience. This is ideal because you are much more likely to sell products or services to members of your target audience than you are to sell products or services to members of an email group which is not filled with those who might be interested in the products or services you offer.

Once all of these preliminary decisions have been made, you can begin to create the actual emails themselves and can begin to distribute these emails. Once you have sent out your first batch of emails, you can take some time to evaluate the effectiveness of the first email before you send out the second batch. This will be useful because if you determine the first batch was not very successful you can solicit feedback and make changes to the second email before sending it out. If the second email is more successful than the first, you can conclude the changes you made were beneficial.

Kansas City Marketing Consultant