Email Marketing – What is it?

E-mail marketing is a form of direct marketing using electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial and/or fundraising messages to an audience (potential customers).

You can use it to market to your current client base, promoting new services/products/sales or to provide free information. You can also use it to directly market to other businesses and individuals, keeping them up to date with who you are, where you are and what you offer.

E-mail marketing Tips: 

• You MUST provide an opt-out or unsubscribe option. This is in accordance to anti-spamming laws. Even if you request that they email you direct, you can manually delete their e-mail address from your records.
• Do not send too many e-mails. We get enough Junk already. Once a month is recommended. You want to be fresh, not pushy (desperate).
• Do not just collect e-mail addresses from all over the place. If you receive a business card from someone or find individual e-mail addresses online, you are better to ask them for permission first. At least they will expect an e-mail from you increasing the chances of them opening it.
• Run your e-mail marketing campaign in-line with your print and in-store advertising. Using the same campaign throughout, you can create a much bigger impact. Your brand will have one identity, not a bunch of fragmented snippets.
• Keep your customer list saved in an Excel database. Most e-mail and e-mail marketing software will allow you to upload/import your entire list at once.
• Provide a subscribe option on your web site/Blog.

Most e-mail marketing software provide reports including how many people opened your e-mails, who they were, if any web site links in your email were clicked and how many people unsubscribed.

As published in the Caboolture News

To get you started, here are some great e-mail marketing programs that you can use.

Mail Chimp – Free Package available and great for those starting out.

Constant Contact – Only about $15 per month

Vision6 – Includes SMS marketing

Bloomtools – Step by step wizard

Webgirl

Spelling correctly

Topic as requested by Caboolture News reader.

Published in the Caboolture News

The combination of text-message-style-typing, laziness and time constraints have seen an increase in bad spelling.

How good is the spelling on your existing website? What about the emails you send out to customers on a daily basis. As a self confessed, “dodgy speller”, I now triple check emails, review the spelling on client websites, my website, any print designs and more. Not only does bad spelling “look bad” it can cost you money to fix it. If nothing else, type up your information in a Word document. Word will do an automatic spell check as you type (avoid capital letters as Word does not normally spell check these). Having someone read over your work can also prove beneficial.

Mozilla Firefox - Great for
the "spelling impaired"

Another great tip I have found is switching from Internet Explorer (Internet browser) to Mozilla Firefox. www.mozilla.com to download. Firefox is very similar to Internet Explorer except it can spell check as you type. It underlines your mistakes as you go. Very handy for those who use webmail accounts, hotmail, gmail or the like. It even works on FACEBOOK and Twitter. Avoid the embarrassment!

On the flip side, bad spelling can be useful. Miss-pelt words or their American/English versions need to be considered in the establishment of an presence online.

Example: ‘Web-Sta’ and ‘Websta’. In the event that someone does an online search and misses, the “-“ in my business name, I have ensured that they will still find my website when they type in ‘websta’.

In general, be careful with your spelling. Increase your chances of making the right impression.

Webgirl