You have probably heard the term ‘opt-in’ email marketing before, or perhaps heard someone discuss ‘permission-based’ marketing. If you are a webmaster, you need to know what these terms mean.
Opt-in email marketing and permission-based marketing are essentially the same. They both entail someone giving you, the website owner, the go-ahead to send out email newsletters. When a person subscribes to your website content and she provides her email address, she is giving her consent for you to send her your newsletters.

Unless otherwise stated in your subscriber box, though, a subscriber is not giving the webmaster authorization to do anything else with her email address. This includes using it for an email newsletter list for another website newsletter (even if the other website is closely related) and selling the email address to another webmaster.

Opt-In Email Marketing and Spammers

One easy way to understand this concept is to look at how spammers typically do business. Spammers often have websites that look legitimate, complete with subscriber boxes. Some people may unknowingly opt-in for spam emails in this manner. However, spammers do not behave ethically in regards to these email addresses-instead, they harvest the email addresses, making lists of viable, working emails. These emails are then used for any and all purposes, and the email lists are also sold to other spammers.
That is not how opt-in email marketing is supposed to work. Opt-in marketing is intended to protect the person who signs up for newsletters and other emails-it is a method to try to keep people from receiving emails in which they have no interest.

Double Opt-In Email Marketing

In order to reassure subscribers that their personal information is safe and secure, a great many webmasters have been looking towards double opt-in email marketing these days.
With regular opt-in marketing, any email address can be added to a subscription box or email list, and it will stay on that list until the owner of the email address takes action to remove the subscription in some way. Double opt-in marketing is a little bit different, though-people are not free to submit any email address…they may only submit addresses to which they have access.

Initially, double opt-in marketing works the same are traditional opt-in marketing-a person enters her email address into a subscriber box on the webmaster’s site, indicating that she would like to receive emails from that website. After that, though, there is another step

Instead of simply clicking ’submit’ and being done with the process, after a person clicks ’submit’ she will receive a confirmation email. This email will contain a link that the person must click (or copy and paste into the address bar). This confirmation link exists as a safety guard to ensure that yes, indeed, the owner of the email address does want to be a member of the email subscriber list.

By choosing double opt-in email marketing rather than traditional opt-in marketing, webmasters are telling their readers that they really care about protecting privacy.

Discover how to build a super responsive mailing list that will skyrocket your online profits in no time flat! Head over to [http://www.mailinglistsexposed.com] and Claim your FREE copy of my opt-in email marketing [http://www.mailinglistsexposed.com] report before it’s too late!

Author: Bill Jeffries
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Targeted Email Marketing

The importance of Emails in business communication cannot be overemphasized. Businesspersons as well as customers devote several hours everyday to send and receive business emails. Its importance in modern business is totally unprecedented. The most updated email marketing technology makes it possible for you to send reasonably personalized email using population-related, ethnic, behavioral, or other information you have about your customers. Email marketing aimed at specific types of customers enables greater attention to customer interests, repeated visits to the websites, and higher ROI from your marketing efforts.

Email marketing with relevance is an essential part of any online marketing campaign. It is the best way to continually increase leads and also to get them to return to your website. Whether you are using search engine marketing or not, targeted email marketing can help your organization make the most use of your marketing.

Basics of Targeted email marketing

If your goal is to kickoff your email marketing campaign, one thing you need to do is focus on your target market. You need to have a thorough understanding of your target market. At this point, you need to build detailed lists. Email marketing would be a damp squib without having a large database of email addresses on your list. If the list is ready, the next task is to get a very persuasive email written.

One of the most important things is the subject line. One cannot send out a promotional email with a flimsy attitude to make sure that it doesn’t sound spammy. Skillfully written, it can prove to be very effective. The subject line should be made really attractive. The content of the email has to be constructed with considerable thought and expertise. Paying attention to all these will ensure the expected kind of results from the receivers. That way the end result of your email marketing campaign can be very fruitful.

Make sure all the email ids are legitimate. Do not send out emails to people who are not your target customers. They will be the only ones who are interested in getting supplementary information. It is usually pointless to send thousands of emails to a number of random addresses. Your emails should look attractive. In order to accomplish that, carefully design the layout and colors. By working on the language of your emails, you can attract a large audience. Do not place content which your audience might find boring. All these would make your emails effective.

Benefits of Targeted Email Marketing

- No additional software is required
- Real-time tracking may be carried out (view opens, click through and responses)
- Has a very easy forward option, which would let you forward your email to a friend.
- Dynamic List Management
- You can maintain unlimited number of lists. Lists may be created easily.
- Easy carrying out of editing and scheduling of campaigns.

There are three reasons to run an email marketing campaign:

·You can develop a better relationship with customers, resulting in improved trust and sales.
· It is a great way of promoting your own products.
· You may sell advertising or the products of others you may have tie-ups with.

You may come across problems such as spam and email blocking. Targeted email marketing continues to be a very effective marketing method. As in the case of everything, the more aware you are of it, the better you carry out the marketing.

If email marketing is used the right way, it would prove to be best way to balance the lower costs with the more motivated response rates. This could be brought about by making it as effective as possible. Your marketing campaign must be based on an improved content, accurate tracking and the right kind of targeting.

The most basic rule of effective targeting is absolutely straightforward. Decipher what your target set is in need of and then offer it to them. Email has a more personal flavor. It is a more Effective Internet Marketing method than selling through a website, which lacks the human face. Being a stronger medium, a website has the potential of harming your reputation and sales.

Putting targeted email marketing into action enables you to reach your target audience and build customer relationships. Targeting is nothing more than the art of focusing your marketing on a particular niche. The two variables you need to work upon are the message and the list.

Email marketing has become a crucial tool for getting customer attention in the first place and making sure that the customers stay. Today everyone has an email address and most users know a good deal about the system. About ninety percent of the customers look forward to getting confirmation orders for their purchases and information about shipping over email.

Yadla.Varun the founder and CEO of http://www.nicheforseo.com

At Nichefor SEO we have great people designated as Managers with 25 years of combined experience in SEO, SEM and website designing services.

Author: Varun Yadla
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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The first people to use email marketing didn’t have any worries or concerns when the internet first began to shift from a primarily information-based medium to a primarily commerce-based medium.

At the time, email marketing was so new and so fresh that the people behind the emails didn’t have to worry about such things as spam filters, de-sensitized readers, CAN-SPAM compliancy or finding catchy headlines that stand out amidst a barrage of emails being sent and received each and every day.

Nowadays, those things (and many more) easily and routinely thwart would-be email marketers. Whether you are trying to promote your offline business or your internet-based business, or if you are one of the tens of thousands who are trying their hand at affiliate marketing, there are some simple steps you can use in your email marketing practices that will help you be more effective with your email marketing efforts.

Of course, more effective will also lead to higher profits for you!

Here are the basic “dos and don’ts” when it comes to successful email marketing:

DO:

o Understand and comply with CAN-SPAM regulations

Ensuring that you meet these requirements will not only help you ensure greater email deliverability and higher rates of customer satisfaction and retention, it could keep you out of jail.

Simply require your email prospects to “double-opt-in” to your list by using a reputable service and include an unsubscribe link, along with your physical mailing address at the bottom of every email you send.

While this may reduce, to some extent, the size of your email list, it will greatly enhance the overall quality if it, not to mention keeping you on the right side of the law.

o Treat your list members with respect

It is very important that you treat the people on your email list with the respect that they deserve. They are, after all, your customers. Treat them the way you would expect to be treated and you will build a happy and loyal client list.

When you ask for their email information in return for something you’re going to provide for them, be sure that you deliver exactly what you promised. In fact, try and over-deliver to gain even greater loyalty.

If you are marketing affiliate products to your list, be very sure that the products you are recommending are reputable and above-board. There’s nothing that will kill your reputation faster than recommending an un-tested product or service to your list. And with your reputation you will lose future profits as well!

o Send an appropriate number of emails your list

Sending emails every day might be okay for some people, some of the time, but in most cases you don’t want to send too many emails to your list. Depending on the specific type of business you’re in, you will generally want to limit your communication to once per week – sometimes even once per month!

There are, of course, exceptions to every rule and in some cases you will want to send messages to your list more than once per week. For instance, if you are promoting a tele-class that happens to fall on a Thursday, you might send email reminders on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday to ensure that people show up for your call.

DON’T

o Send unsolicited SPAM email

This may seem obvious, but all too often I hear about new email marketers who purchase, rent or otherwise “obtain” a list of people they think may be qualified prospects. They email the list and are immediately inundated with SPAM complaints to their inbox. Who knows how many complainants simply hit the “mark as SPAM” button in their email program to automatically notify their internet provider of your invasion.

If there is one way to have a short-lived email marketing career, this is it!

o Send pure pitch with no substance

People are smart and can spot a “pitch” from a mile away. If there is no real content in your emails, why would someone continue to read them once they’ve decided that they’re not interested?

By providing real value, you can create a habitual response to your emails so that your list members anxiously open any new mail from you, knowing that they are going to get something of value to them, even if they choose not to buy anything.

(It is important to note that it is okay to “sell” by email, just be sure that you are providing value at the same time.)

o Avoid removing people from your list

No one likes it when someone opts out of their email list. It can feel personal even though it probably isn’t. But that is no reason to disrespect the wishes of your (former) subscriber.

It is best to use a reputable email service provider that allows users to automatically unsubscribe from your list, without you having to do anything. These systems also prevent you from mistakenly emailing people who have expressly asked you not to.

Contrary to some people’s opinions out there, email marketing is not dead. Not by a long shot, in fact. But you do have to know at least a little bit about what you’re doing in order to become successful at in the long run.

Remember that short-term cash over long-term sustained profits is never a wise business decision. By adhering to these simple dos and don’ts you can build a profitable email marketing list, regardless of whether you own a traditional or online business, or simply affiliate marketing other people’s products.

Happy emailing!

Paul Keetch is co-founder and Chief Excitement Officer of Make Anything Work a company dedicated to helping small businesses grow successfully. Get practical, easy-to-apply marketing training with our Marketing “Bookinar” at http://www.MakeMyMarketingWork.com

Author: Paul Keetch
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Email marketing is a very effective way to reach your customers.
It will also help you increase the traffic to your website and
improve sales. How do you develop an effective email marketing
campaign? After all, what you send to your customers is very
important. If it isn’t well designed or professional looking the
results could be damaging to your business instead of
beneficial.

The first part of the email marketing campaign needs to include
your goals. What do you expect to achieve from your email
marketing campaign? Who do you want to reach? You should also
decide what type of marketing you are going to do. Will it be
random discounts and promotions, seasonal, or will you be
sending a regular newsletter? Next you will need to do some
research. Do you know the email marketing laws? What are the
current market trends? How are you going to make your email
marketing campaign more appealing than that of the competition?
You have to have these goals clearly defined and outlined.
Otherwise your will just spin your wheels while developing your
email marketing campaign.

Since the goals of every business are very different, the
strategies they use in email marketing will also be very
different. While this gives each business the ability to be
creative an unique in developing their marketing campaign, it
also makes it difficult because there are no clear cut answers.
If you aren’t skilled in developing email marketing campaigns
you will need to purchase email marketing software or hire an
email marketing consultant.

How well do you know your customer? I hope well because this is
a very important part of developing an effective email marketing
campaign. You have to be able to address your key audience by
providing them with relevant information. If they aren’t
interested in what you have to say then it doesn’t matter how
many emails you manage to send out.

Once you have decided on your email marketing campaign you may
think you are ready to hit the send button, but hold on just a
little bit longer. Make sure everything in the email is spelled
correctly and grammatically correct. Nothing looks more
unprofessional than an email marketing campaign will errors.
They will stick out like a sore thumb. Remember to test the
effectiveness of the email on the various email service
providers as they all have variations. You will be disappointed
to discover that subscribers to a particular service weren’t
able to open your email for it to read properly.

Make sure the subject line of your email is clear and effective.
This will help your email marketing campaign to get past the
various spam filters and virus protectors. Many researchers of
email marketing believe the subject line will make or break the
reader’s decision to open your email. Make sure you personalize
the email and address it to the consumer rather than a broad
introduction. You will want to attach a clear expiration date to
your email marketing promotion. Nothing motivates the consumer
than having a deadline. They don’t want to miss out on the
opportunity to take advantage of what you are offering.

Avbinash S Pandey is Mechanical Engineer by profession and internet marketer. From July 2005, he is fully dedicated his time to internet marketing and earning more than $6500/month.He is expert in PPC marketing, adsense, email list building, affiliate marketing. His website are: http://www.4200dollarweeklyhome.com
http://www.4200dollarweeklyhome.com/30MinuteMarketingMiracle
http://www.4200dollarweeklyhome.com/SecretEbayMarketing

Author: Sharad Pandey
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Awe Inspiring Pictures

Email marketing is a key communications tool in the marketing mix for small and medium sized enterprises. If you get it right, it is cost effective, targeted, personalised, measurable and good for attracting and retaining customers. In the 2008 Email Census, email was rated the second-best channel (after search engine optimisation) for return on investment.

Your emails should be helping to build a trusted relationship, establishing your expertise and ultimately increasing repeat and new sales. The most successful emails combine valued content with short sales and marketing messages that have links to specific ‘landing’ pages on your website for more information. Regular contact with customers will ensure that they learn about your offering ready for future purchases. However, if you get email marketing wrong it can be an enormous waste of time, damage relationships and restrict the future use of this ideal marketing channel.

So how do you get your email marketing right?

1. Database

Before any emails can be sent you need a database and to have an ongoing data collection activity. You should segment your database so that you can target emails to the appropriate recipients. The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) reports that most companies segment into 2 or 3 separate lists.

Start with your existing customer base and collect more new contacts through your website, all marketing forms and via sales staff at every possible opportunity.

Keep the data you collect to a minimum at first – too many questions will put people off. Start with first name, last name, company name and email address. If appropriate, add male or female tick boxes and options to specify areas of interest and options for frequency of emails.

Ideally you should offer something in return for their email address and say what they are signing up to. For example, you can offer a useful article or a voucher and state that they will receive a newsletter every month or be the first to hear about special offers about their preferred product.

Direct email marketing is best suited for communicating to people you have had some contact with, rather than cold prospects. However, to reach prospects, it is a good idea to investigate how you can tie in with emails from another trusted partner or supplier.

It is essential to clean your database regularly. After each email campaign you must remove all those who have unsubscribed and look at how the responses to the email may allow you to further segment your list. For example, all those that clicked on a particular link can be grouped for future specific email content.

If you have undelivered emails, make a phone call. Find out what the new person’s email address is and find out where the previous person has gone so that you can get back in touch. Every name is valuable, particularly in Business to Business (B2B) markets, where there may be a limited number of potential customers. You could have a message in your email asking recipients to let you know if they want to change the email address that is used to receive this newsletter to try and avoid losing people.

2. Plan

Have a plan for your email marketing.

• What are your objectives? These could range from repeat sales and up selling/cross selling to recommendations for new sales and new customer acquisition.

• What type of messages will you send? Email content can include some or all of the following: valuable useful content (how to guides), sales messages, surveys, invites to events, newsflashes.

• How often? Once or twice a month is common, once a quarter will not be enough to achieve the goal of building a relationship and keeping your brand in the reader’s mind. How often will you have something valuable to say? Frequency can be adapted based upon buying habits, seasonality and on the responses received and customer segments’ preferences. Remember to act promptly after first receiving a contact’s details. If you do not communicate with them for several months after they sign up they may not open your email, unsubscribe or worse report you as spam.

• What time? The only way to make this a more exact science is to analyse the responses you get and test different scenarios, as well as applying your understanding of peak sales times and your customers’ buying cycles? For desk based people, it is likely that they will have more uninterrupted time to review emails first thing in the morning.

• What application will you use? The most common solution is to have web-based email application interface, provided by an email service provider, that allows you to manage all your email marketing in-house. The alternatives are a fully managed external service or an off the shelf package. There are a variety of web-based applications that are very affordable for small to medium sized businesses. Some providers will also create a newsletter template based on your corporate branding ready for you to use. The smaller systems often stand alone and allow you to upload all your existing contacts to the application and add in new ones and create your own data fields for segmentation and personalisation. Other email applications will enable the data from web forms to directly feed into the email contact database and integrate directly with CRM systems.

• How will it link in with other sales and marketing activities? Email may be used after a direct mail shot which is then followed up by a sales call. Some companies use telesales to introduce an email service of sending a series of informative and topical articles and follow this up with another call and an invitation to a meeting. Text messages can be sent out to alert people to an email that has just been sent. Recipients that clicked on certain items in an email may have their details given to sales reps as leads. Email marketing should be one of the tactics you use, alongside other communication channels to reach your customers. For maximum effectiveness, marketing should be multi-faceted.

• How sophisticated and automated will it be? This will depend on the functionality of the solution you have. Most systems have the ability to set up triggers that send automated, time delayed follow up pre-prepared emails based on the recipient’s reaction to an email you’ve sent to them. It could be relatively simple automatic thank you emails or a series follow-on emails relating to content a user clicked on in the first email. For example, following a free report download, an email may be sent with information on things to consider when purchasing, followed by another about the product range and offers. If email is integrated with web and CRM solutions, it can include advising customers that their credit card is due to expire for an ongoing service they pay for (eg video rental) and sending vouchers to users of an ecommerce web site that abandoned their shopping trolley before payment. (Remember to regularly check the content of your trigger emails to ensure they are still uptodate.)

3. Email subject line

You need a winning subject line because your customer’s/prospect’s inbox will have more and more emails competing for their attention. The first two or three words will be the most important. Use 50 characters or less to increase your open rates and be honest and clear about what is in the email.

Make the subject lines enticing so that recipients want to read more about how they can benefit today. Successful techniques include using numbers to get attention and words such as ‘how to’, ‘find out’ and ‘tips’. Asking a question can also work well. Make it relevant now or time limited with phrases such as ‘3 places left at customer service seminar’ or ‘Book golf by end June for discount’. Use personalisation with words such as you and your.

Avoid words that will label the email as spam, such as Free, Special Offer, Increase Sales, Urgent, Lowest price, Compare Rates, Click here, Save up to, Guarantee, Exclusive, No (eg No Obligation). It is also best to avoid using these phrases more than once in your email too content too. You should avoid capital letters, lots of punctuation and symbols.

Most email applications have a spam score system within them so that you can test if you have spam risks before sending.

4. Email content

There are a number of key points to consider. We all receive a lot of emails now and only briefly scan an email before deciding whether to read or delete.

• The content must be of interest to the reader. Use a variety of sources such as customer information from sales reps, research and web analytics to develop content. Email newsletter topics include solutions to problems and how to avoid disaster, how to guides, top 5 tips for getting more out of your product or being better at what they do, news and opinion/analysis, future predictions, case studies with hard facts and numbers that provide practical information.

• Text content must be visible in the preview pane of the email application and the content headlines and your company name needs to be at the top of your message. Headlines that are links are more likely to get clicks. Research shows that people concentrate on the first 2 words of the headlines. A two column format for your email may help display more text headlines within the top of the email.

• Most inboxes automatically block images in emails and the reader initially sees red crosses or a series of boxes with the text ‘Right click here to download pictures…”. By using text at the top of your email, rather than images, the recipient can quickly see who the email is from and the headlines before having to right click. Avoid having images as headings – ensure they are in text format – and avoid having background images for the whole email because this will stop it displaying properly on many email clients. Provide a link to a web version of your email for those that just can not see your email properly.

• Use short sharp text and bullet points to help the reader. Use the right tone for your audience and use friendly language to build the relationship. Personalise the content and avoid spam words as much as possible. Personalise by using their name, recent events, mutual contacts, information about purchase history etc. Have some element of urgency or action such as a deadline for offers, limited quantities, or that your performance could improve today with these tips.

• Be clear and concise about what you want the reader to do (the call to action) eg phone, click to website, reply by email. In some cases it can be a good idea to repeat your main call to action within the email.

• It is best to keep emails relatively short and use links to landing pages for downloading an article, to sign up/register, apply for a quote, watch a video clip, see photographs or complete a survey. (Landing pages may be existing pages on the website or a newly created page that sits separate to your website). Reinforce your key message and the action you want the person to take on the landing page and offer a phone number, for example, if they do not want to use the form. You should state how long the survey will take (a couple of minutes is best.) It may be necessary to offer incentives for completing a survey.

• You could have a link to alternative content just in case what is in your email is not directly of interest to the recipient (particularly important when you are learning about segmenting your list).

• The general rule is that emails should not exceed 60k in file size.

• Have a clear unsubscribe button – this is a legal requirement. Avoid using the phrase ‘click here to unsubscribe’, use an alternative phrase to avoid being classed as spam. Suggest that the reader adds your email address to their address book/safe sender list.

• Direct referrals from friends and colleagues is the best marketing, so put a ‘forward to a friend’ option in your email.

• It is now also a legal requirement for emails to include a company’s registration number, country of registration and registered office address.

5. Test

Test your emails in the following ways to improve success:

• Subject lines – test sending emails in small batches with different subject lines to see how the open rates may differ.

• Content – test that all the links (to your website, to unsubscribe etc.) are working before you send out the email, as well as the personalisation and dates and do a spell check. Always double check you are sending the email to the right database list.

• Design – send a test email to various email accounts to see how they look eg Hotmail, Outlook, Blackberry. Most emails use HTML format. Unfortunately BlackBerry’s and some mobile devices will not display your HTML emails properly. You may need to investigate creating text only versions of your emails for your dedicated BlackBerry/mobile users. You will also need to consider what they will see when they are directed to landing pages too.

6. Delivery

Delivery rates of 90% are good. However, even if the recipients of your email have opted in and the email address is correct, your email is not guaranteed to be delivered. This could be because the network is busy, the destination server classes your email as spam, your ISP has black listed you, or a mailbox is full. Research shows that 15-20% of emails are typically bounced or spam blocked. You can improve deliverability by:

• keeping your data clean and up to date by deleting unsubscribes from your lists and deleting undeliverable addresses

• having double opt ins (ie a recipient puts their email address in twice)

• avoiding spam phrases (as stated above, most email applications have a spam score system within them so that you can test if you have spam risks before sending)

• avoiding spam complaints by only sending to people who have signed up to receive email. Recipients can hit automatic spam buttons on your emails to directly alert the ISP. Too many of these and you could be black listed by the ISP

• keeping track of complaints – investigate and solve issues that are causing them. Get feedback from your ISP

• being consistent with the from/sender email address that you use – your brand/company name should be clear

• avoiding changing your IP address since new addresses with no history have stricter thresholds.

Take a look at what emails have gone straight to your junk folder in your email application – what was wrong with those emails?

Look at ‘out of office replies’ and see if they give you more information such as job title that you may not have in your database.

7. Measure

Email marketing is the most measurable marketing tactic. Measurement is typically split into the following categories:

• Send: number sent, number delivered, number bounced.

• Performance: open and click through rates, number of unsubscribes and forwards. (You can also check your web analytics to see if emails have generated more visits to your site and to see what else visitors looked at to help understand their interests).

• Conversion: action taken and sales.

Record results and continue to test and analyse every email campaign. A direct sale is not often expected in the B2B market, that will often require a follow-up by phone or face to face.

The Direct Marketing Association’s National Email Benchmarking Report states that the average open rates in 2008/9 were 19% for retention emails and 14% for acquisition emails. Click through rate averages vary from 6% – 8.8%.

There are some great success stories with email marketing techniques increasing customer conversion of online quotes by over 70%.

However, it is a good idea to try and find metrics for your own industry and to establish your own internal benchmarks for email marketing by carefully recording and analysing results. By fine tuning your database and subject lines the open rates will increase. Alternative measures may be the number of enquiries generated, the amount of articles downloaded or the number of demos requested, for example.

Good luck with your campaign

Email marketing success will be dependent on getting all these factors right – if one part fails all your hard work in other areas will be wasted. By constantly building your understanding of your customers/prospects, you can tailor all future marketing activities for increased success and ROI.

For more information contact Emma Pearce, Pearce Marketing Consultants

Emma Pearce is the owner of Pearce Marketing Consultants, based in Eastbourne, East Sussex, UK.

By using Pearce Marketing you can add cost effective, practical and flexible marketing expertise to your team at the time you need it and get results.

Best selling services include:
• writing a marketing plan
• assisting with a specific sales and marketing task
• an outsourced marketing manager service – working as many hours as you need each month to get your marketing done.

We work with a diverse range of companies from manufacturers and architects to legal trainers, independent opticians, family attractions and online fashion retailers.

See client testimonials on my website.

For more information, contact Emma Pearce on 07887 950552, email info@pearcemarketing.co.uk or visit http://www.pearcemarketing.co.uk/

Author: Emma Pearce
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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