subject: Email Marketing - Making It Legitimate All The Way [print this page] Over the past years, email marketing has continued to churn out more benefits for the business: cost-effectiveness, better and better promotions, high conversion rates from both existing and prospect markets, detailed tracking, and the list goes on. All these developments gave marketing through emails a new and much better identity than just a mere tool for e-businesses and especially spammers. Today's consumers are becoming more vigilant on the issues that clearly separated permission-based emails and spam, with more and more of them appreciating the value of the former as an effective replacement for the direct email setup.
What's most welcoming is that majority of the recipients for the permission-based emails do find the time to open and browse through the email. Research revealed that effective marketing campaigns utilizing the email platform produce great results nine times greater than the revenues reported and about eighteen times more from broadcast mailings profits. This is no walk in the park however; to craft out effective business emails requires a touch of both science and art. Here are some things that you can expect along the way:
Spam
It's a fact - average consumers receive 300 emails or more in a week, and about 62% of it are considered spam. This figure attributes the hostility shown towards the industry. But with the presence of spam and bulk folders and "report spam" features, consumers should now be at ease.
As a permission-based email marketer, what can you do on your end? One good tip would be to ask subscribers to add your business into their "safe sender's" list. Another effective tactic would be to make certain that your service provider has an effective partnership with the ISP's. This will make sure that your efforts will end up in your subscriber's inboxes, and not into their junk mail folders. Choosing an email marketing software means checking the manufacturer for strict anti-spam features and policies, and that it must comply with Can-Spam guidelines.
Image designs and formatting
There are some cases where broken email campaigns (broken email messages) are affecting the industry in varying degrees especially since companies and even web-based email providers are now blocking certain levels in the graphics as a countermeasure against spam. To counter this, a secure web location was developed where only the recipients have the right to access it.
Content Personalization
In business e-mails, what anyone can be sure of is that a single configuration alone is not enough to accommodate everything. Email users are more likely to respond to business emails if the content caters to the interest that they have specified. All your efforts will be useless unless you can convince your recipients to open and explore the content on it. The inclusion of product discounts and giveaways should also make things interesting.
It really helps to think it through carefully. Always remember that small mistakes and sidesteps alone would be enough to take your business off the tracks.
