Email Marketing Advantages

Email marketing has become an acceptable option for marketing a business. It allows you to stay connected to current and prospective clients and provides ways to grow your business and build a loyal following. As a viable and low-cost part of your marketing plan, it plays a big role as a method by which you can distribute, advertise, and promote various types of communication to a wide range of recipients.

Through a targeted email marketing approach you may tailor or personalize your message to your specific audience or niche. In marketing terms, this is called segmentation.

The advantages to using an email marketing strategy to promote your business are many, such as: low cost as compared to traditional mailing costs, the speed at which your message is delivered, and the ability for recipients to forward the message to others who may also be interested. Moreover, email marketing software allows you to track results of your communications, allowing you to evaluate your success and enhance your messages through your statistical insights.

While there are multiple advantages, keep in mind that email marketing is intended to be an enhancement to your other marketing activities. For example, it may be used to lead your prospects to your website, which should be designed to process sales, while your email marketing campaign will highlight the benefits of your offerings and encourage prospects to make a purchase. Your website should also be the focus of other online marketing strategies such as search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and article marketing. Email marketing allows you to enhance all your marketing efforts and encourages customers to patronize your business and become loyal fans.

Always remember when implementing an email marketing campaign do not overdo it, one of the downsides or disadvantages of email marketing. If you’re sending emails to thousands of people every other day, they’re going to get tired of hearing from you and either delete them or opt out of your mailing list, which will potentially cost you a lot of business. The last thing you want to do is irritate your subscribers by making them feel they’ve been tricked into signing up for something they didn’t actually want.

Email marketing is a very valuable tool to supplement your marketing strategies while giving you an additional method to keep in touch with your customers and prospects to build a loyal following.

Jeannine Clontz, owner of Accurate Business Services, a VA practice, is an author, writer, speaker and VA Business Coach specializing in providing professional business coaching to established and start-up virtual assistants (VA’s). For her FREE audio CD “What’s Holding Back my Business Success?” or a 2-month trial in her group coaching program visit: http://www.VAbizcoach.com; or contact her at: coach@VAbizcoach.com.

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 3:32 pm and is filed under Business Coach, Business Coaching, business growth, Business Tips, Entrepreneur, growing a business, Growing your business, Marketing Plans, Marketing Support, Marketing Tips, Marketing Your Business, VA, VA Classes, VA Coach, VA Coaching, VA Training, Virtual Assistance, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Classes, Virtual Assistant Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Email Marketing Advantages”

Dianna Lambert Says:
October 5th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
I am interested in the email marketing strategy, that is one area I have not used much, other than my friends and family. In your opinion what is the best way to on email marketing and building your base. thanks Dianna
Jeannine Clontz Says:
October 6th, 2009 at 8:24 am
Hi, Dianna -

Thanks so much for your comment. I was one of those people that hesitated doing any sort of email marketing because I thought people would think I was spamming them. I think that may have been true 12 years ago, but nowadays, email marketing, done properly, is a great way to stay connected and top-of-mind with clients and prospects.

The best way to use an email marketing program is sparingly. I connect with everyone once a month, sometimes twice, but usually by sharing information and resources, rather than a ‘buy from me’ type message. No one likes to be sold to, including me!

Building your list is the most important part, I believe. There are several ways you can do this. You can have a sign-up on your website or blog page; use it as part of a call-to-action (sign-up for my eZine and receive a free report) on a marketing piece; mention it in emails or ask them if it’s okay to sign them up; use an email marketing system such as Constant Contact, Exact Target, Swift Page, etc., that allow you to include a ‘forward’ so that your contacts can share with others; or when you’re at a live networking event and you capture someone’s business card, ask them if it would be okay to sign them up.

Those are just a few of the ways you can build your prospect list, and of course, don’t forget to include your current clients. Be creative but respectful and you’ll be well on your way to building a great database for email marketing.

Hope this helps.