Email Marketing

Email Marketing Campaign Steps

1. Collect Addresses

There are two options to obtaining an email list – buy one or develop it in-house.

Buy List - When you buy a list, you have instant access to a range of potential customers who you may not have been able to reach otherwise. However, the downfall is you have limited knowledge on how these customers’ addresses were obtained and how long they have been available. It is also difficult to determine who else owns the same list. It can be expensive to buy a list and even more costly when you consider how much you pay for a list of addresses that may no longer be valid. If you are considering buying a list, ensure you do your homework. Find out how the list was developed and how targeted it is. Make sure the vendor has a list that matches your target audience, and evaluate the reputation of the vendor you plan to buy the list from.

Develop List In-House - While the biggest downfall to building your own list is the time it takes to develop one, there are many long-term benefits. There is no cost to develop the list, you can be confident that the people on your list are quality contacts who are willing to accept email from you, and there is little risk of being labeled a ‘spammer‘ since you have gone through an ‘opt-in’ process to qualify your customers.

If you have a business, your ultimate goal is to gain long-term profitable customers. The way to gain long-term customers is to build relationships with them, which involves regular communication. When a customer enters you store, browses your web site or has any contact with your company, it is a prime opportunity to gather as much information about them as possible. There are a number of ways you can obtain your customers’ email address.

• Conferences and Events - Provide prizes that require the customer to fill out a form that includes a box with an option to accept more information about your company via email.
• Direct Mail - In the next promotional piece you send out, ask customers if they would like to receive further information by email.
• Support - When customers call in for support ask them for their contact information. You can also have them complete customer service forms.
• Memberships - Encourage customers to become members of your business or web site that will enable them to receive personalized information via email.
• Forms - Give customers a chance to be a part of your email list by providing an online form.
• In-Store Locations - Entice customers to fill out forms that will enable you to send them product information via email.

Not all these methods will necessarily give you permission to send out regular communications via email to your customers. However, they will provide an avenue where you can gain initial contact and then develop boundaries for your email campaigns. For instance, if a customer completes a customer service form you may contact them to gather their opinions on how you can improve your customer service and then further qualify them by asking them if they like to receive other communications from you company in the future. The trick is to make email submission quick and easy to do.

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