Introduction to Online Marketing Using Email Lists as a
Marketing Tool
As a business
entrepreneur there are numerous ways to increase your sales and better market
yourself and your abilities. One of the most common, and most profitable, ways
to increase your network is through online marketing. Online marketing is a
must for anyone who owns their own business or has a product or an idea they're
trying to sell, and one of the ways is to use Email lists as a marketing tool.
Twenty years ago
online marketing wouldn't have gotten you very far, but now the internet is the
quickest, and most productive, way to get your idea out there into the world.
One of the most
useful methods of online marketing is email marketing. Email marketing does a
number of helpful things for you. Email marketing:
− Allows you to reach many people at once
− Gives you an
unlimited number of contacts
− Is more affordable
than regular mail
− It's easy to
update
These points are
very important for today's marketing entrepreneur. Let's talk about the first
point. Email marketing allows you to reach a number of people at once.
Allows You to Reach Many People at Once
When I say 'A numberof people' I don't just mean ten or twenty, I'm talking hundreds and thousands.
You might have a hundred email addresses to work with and email marketing will
let you get through to all of them.
It's not only that
you can email many people; the great thing about email marketing is also that
you can email many people at once and say the same thing to them. In other
words, you don't have to re-write the email over and over.
One of the things I
find about hand writing letters and advertisements is that although it is still
a lot less informal, it is sloppy.
Hand writing all of
your clients means you either a) Write hundreds of letter until your wrists are
stiff and your fingers ache, or b) write one letter and photocopy it which
doesn't look nearly as impressive as handwriting them.
Email correspondence
saves you a lot of trouble because nobody expects a handwritten online letter.
You don't have to worry about photocopies and buying stamps, all you have to do
is write a brilliant advertisement or newsletter and send it through multiple
emails. You can also copy and paste the letter if your email list is too large
to send that many messages at once.
Gives You an Unlimited Number of Contacts
That brings me to my
second point. Email lists can be unlimited. Yes, addresses in your personal
organiser can be unlimited as well, but emails are so much easier to keep up
with. You don't have to worry about losing your address book or one of your
clients moving and you not having the new address.
With your email list
you can almost guarantee their email address is going to be the same every time
you make contact with them, no matter how far away they moved. Keeping your
email list organised is also much easier than you think, in fact, most
providers, such as Google, keep your contacts organised systematically.
An auto responder
service such as AWeber.com or a service like RocketResponder.com, depending on
your requirements, would be the choice
if you're looking for a complete email marketing solution - from getting your
site visitors to subscribe for updates to easily sending out a newsletter to
them. I'll discuss more on another occasion, but here’s the bonus with this
form of contact marketing.
It Is More Affordable Than Regular Mail
Email is free. It
really doesn't get any better than free, does it? When it comes to marketing,
very little things can be considered affordable. After all, marketing is a
competitive business to be in.
When you market
yourself you have to keep up with everyone else in the same market as you,
which means you need to be aware of:
− Current trends
− Your manner of speaking and writing
− Your appearance
− Your sell ability
− Your finances
Maximising Your Finances
Your finances are
the first thing that should be on your mind as you step into the wonderful
world of online marketing. Actually, your finances should be on your mind even
marketing yourself offline and there are many ways to save yourself some money
here and there.
One of the best
ways, of course, is through email marketing. Let's look at the cost of postage
for a moment. When you send a letter you are paying for the price of the paper,
the envelope and the stamp. Those are just the outside costs. Mailing a letter
through the post also means you're paying for your own time.
Writing one
excellent sales letter can take anywhere from five minutes to an hour (We tend
to rethink our sales letters, don't we?). Copying that letter hundreds of times
will take even longer.
Now, let's add in
the time it takes to hand write that letter instead of type it (you can double
the minutes on that) and then add on some more wasted time when you have to
search every contacts address and write those on the envelopes (which is a
necessity).
Time consuming,
isn't it? Emailing your clients takes away all of that extra wasted time and
money you would have spent on sending those letter or advertisements through
the post
"Oh Yes! I Just Found Out Something Important To Tell You"
In other words, you
are not done mailing those letters yet. Whenever something about your product
changes or (very importantly) goes on sale, you are going to have to notify
your clients again. Now do you see what I mean?
That notification
takes you back to square one of your mailings. Why would you want to go through
all the trouble of having to mail out numerous new letters or advertisement
when you could just email all those updates for free?
"One of the
most important things you will ever need to know is that marketing and Email
marketing is mostly made up of a bunch of average products or services spoken about
interestingly."
You don't have to
have the most interesting product in the world to market it, you just need the
right target audience to make it sound like the most interesting product in the
world, to the right target audience.
In conclusion
If you are a first
time online marketer or a seasoned business entrepreneur, you absolutely must
get your name out there. Remember this if nothing else, “Marketing is so easy
that it is actually hard.”
What do I mean by
this? Well marketing itself is quite easy, but keeping it up can become
difficult, you have to be fairly constant. Keep your social media active and
engaging, which for many can be time consuming; Facebook and Twitter profiles
updated on at least an every other day basis.
Whatever you do Remember
also that any kind of marketing is just that: marketing.
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