A Cost Effective Way to Advertise Online. . . A Permission E-Mail Marketing

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 by: Robin Nobles

We all hate e-mail spam, right? I even have the coolest
software program that will help you combat spam and actually bounces
the spam e-mail straight back to the user. (http://www.mailwasher.net)

However, one thing that we often fail to admit (except in
private) is the importance of permission e-mail marketing, where the
members of your mailing list have given you permission to contact them,
or where they're past customers of yours. Obviously, these e-mail lists
are always opt-out, so if someone chooses not to continue receiving
information from you, they can easily get removed from the list.

Many of you know that I write monthly articles for
Planet Ocean Publications, which (in my opinion) is one of the best
sources for up-to-date information in the search engine industry. Their
monthly online publication, Search Engine News, is second to none, and
if you don't subscribe to it, you're missing out on tips and strategies
that could make an amazing difference in your search engine
optimization work. For those of you who aren't familiar with Planet
Ocean, here's their URL. http://www.searchenginehelp.com

Stephen Mahaney is the editor of Planet Ocean, and he's
easily one of the top marketing guru's on the Internet. I spent several
hours on the phone with him recently, and he told me that Time Magazine
wrote an article in their November 3 edition that dealt with the
importance and impact of permission e-mail marketing.

There are a couple of quotes straight from the magazine:

"E-mail marketing is fast, effective and dirt cheap -- a
godsend for marketers in an economy that has crunched advertising
budgets."

". . . the humble medium of e-mail is blossoming while flashier forms of Internet advertising are going the way of the Pets.com sock puppet."

"Little wonder that old-line companies like Ford and
Procter & Gamble are joining early users of targeted e-mail pitches
like Amazon.com and J. Crew."

Can we trust Time Magazine? I do believe we can! They're a
highly trusted magazine and have been for years and years. Time is
clearly going on the record of saying that permission e-mail marketing
is one of the most valuable means of making sales on the Internet, but
only if done properly.

In the words of Stephen Mahaney, "If you have yet to
'correctly' integrate 'permission email marketing' into your online
business plan, then you risk being thwarted by your competitors that
do. It's just that plain and simple."

So, while spam e-mail should always remain locked
tightly in a closet (NEVER to be let out), permission e-mail marketing
is a crucial way for you to keep in touch with your customers and those
interested in your products or services.

Let's look at five effective permission e-mail
marketing strategies, tips that many Webmasters fail to do, and they
ultimately lose business because of it.

1. If someone writes for information on your goods or
services, save those e-mail addresses! Remember that sales aren't
always made the first time someone hears of a service or product. One
trusted source told me that you have to hear about a product, service,
or company at least twenty times before you begin to trust that company
enough to do business with them.

2. Set up an online form where people can sign up with
their names and e-mail addresses to receive a copy of your monthly or
quarterly newsletter or updates to your site, or to ask you questions.
Have the information go straight into a database that contains the
e-mail addresses of everyone who has written to you for information.
Then, create a newsletter that is not just a sales pitch for your
products and services. Offer valuable tips to your potential customers.
Give the newsletter true value, and those potential customers will
begin to look forward to hearing from you. Then, when it's time for
them to purchase the types of goods or services that you offer, who do
you think they'll go to? The company they can trust: you!

3. Respond to your e-mail or to the questions asked on
the form within 24 hours, if not sooner. When people go online looking
for something, they usually send e-mail out to 5-6 companies. If your
company is the first to respond, and if you've taken the time to answer
the questions professionally and thoughtfully, you'll have a jump over
those other companies, many of which won't even answer the e-mail at
all.

4. Always provide a way to "opt-out" of your e-mail
list. Make it very clear how your subscribers can choose not to receive
the newsletter or e-mail any longer, and then immediately unsubscribe
them when they write to you. Remember: having permission to send the
e-mail in the first place by only adding those who have contacted you
and expressed an interest in your product, and giving those people a
way to get off your mailing list, will differentiate you from the
millions of e-mail spammers that have given e-mail marketing such a bad
name.

5. Take time in creating your subject line for your
e-mail marketing campaign. Make sure it doesn't sound "spammy" in any
way. Including your name or company name is a possibility, as well as
describing the focus of the e-mail. With these new e-mail programs that
combat spam, if you use a subject line like, "We've got GREAT news for
you!" or "Hi, Friend!," you can expect the email to be deleted without
ever making it to your potential customer.

How can you learn effective permission e-mail marketing strategies?

Stephen Mahaney attributes much of his online success to
effective permission e-mail marketing. He's even gone so far as to
write a course on the subject, which I've personally reviewed. It
offers a step-by-step approach on how to create an effective permission
e-mail marketing list and how to market to that list. The course even
comes packaged with a full version software program for merging each
message with the people on your list so they'll each get a personalized
e-mail.

So, with Time Magazine pushing the importance of e-mail
marketing to the forefront of marketing online, here's information
about Stephen's "Business Guide to Permission Email Marketing" course
and software: http://www.email-solutions.com

How effective is permission e-mail marketing?

Traditionally,permission e-mail marketing campaigns
result in a significantly higher response rate than traditional direct
marketing or other forms of online advertising, such as banner ads.
According to FindMoreBuyers.com,
the response rate for a typical permission e-mail marketing campaign is
4-12%, where as the response rate for a banner ad is .5-1%. Quite a
difference. http://findmorebuyers.com/page.cfm/205

According to Emarketer.com,
DoubleClick projects that e-mail marketing budgets will increase by
17.0% in 2002, which is nearly twice the rate of other types of online
marketing, which are expected to gain 9.0%. TV, print and radio budgets
are all expected to decrease. Not only that, DoubleClick reports that
61% of marketers plan to increase their e-mail marketing budget in
2002.

Forrester Research estimates that the total spending
for e-mail marketing services in the United States will reach $2
billion by the end of this year. http://www.emarketer.com/products/report.php ?email_mktg&PHPSESSID=f564eda06be98116905028b857b834c4

So, hit while the iron is hot, and permission e-mail
marketing is certainly "hot" right now! Learn how to use it
effectively, and then watch those profits increase!

About the Author

Robin Nobles is the Co-Director of Training of Search Engine Workshops with John Alexander. They teach 2-day beginner, 3-day advanced, and 5-day all-inclusive "hands on" search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe. She also teaches online search engine marketing courses through http://www.onlinewebtraining.com, and she’s a member of Wordtracker’s official question support team. With partner John Alexander, she's co-authored a series of e-books called, "The Totally Non-Technical Guides to Having a Successful Web Site." And, they opened a networking community for search engine marketers called The World Resource Center for Search Engine Marketers.

robin@searchengineworkshops.com

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