subject: Is Email Marketing Dead - How Email Marketing Can Be Effective For Small Business [print this page] Is Email Marketing Dead - How Email Marketing Can Be Effective For Small Business
Many people will tell you that email marketing is dead. In my opinion nothing could be further from the truth. What is dead is the thought that we can use email to send people advertisements for things they really don't want. That is called SPAM. When I receive an ad in my email box for sexual enhancement I am upset. On the other hand when I receive an email in my box that tells me about a product that can help me in my business, I am excited. You can see how they get a very different response.In order to have any type of email marketing you need to have a list of people to email. This can be accomplished in a few ways. The best way to build a list for a local business is to ask your customers and potential customers for their email address when they call you or are in your business. Keep these email addresses and use them to promote upcoming specials that you have and things that are of interest to your customers.Another way that you can build an email list is to do it on autopilot. What I mean is have a place on your website that your customers and people interested in your products can leave their name and email address. Typically when you do this you will offer them something called "an ethical bribe". This might be a short report or an eBook that would be of interest to the people in your niche. For instance if you are a roofer you may send them a free report on "10 Ways to Preserve Your Roof For A Lifetime".There are old ways of hard coding this type of form into your site, but they are cost prohibitive for most small businesses. Instead most of us use what is called an Autoresponder service. These services charge a low monthly fee and they provide a variety of styles of collection boxes you can easily put on your site and they provide a way for you to easily send out mass emails to all the people on your list. They even have a way that you can schedule messages to go out to your list in the future. Most of the lists that I have are stocked with content that will drip out over the next year. So I set it and forget it!
