A useful addition to a website development or web-marketing campaign is regular communication with customers via email - such as an email-newsletter, special offers, follow up emails, customer surveys and more. This page of our website gives an overview of email marketing, and suggested actions to achieve succesful results. Further in depth detail with regards to the range of tools and techniques is covered in the description of Web-Duka Email Marketer.

email marketing in a nutshell

Of all the tools offered to us by the internet - email always has been, and continues to be the most common and widespread. Even though recent trends towards social networking such as Facebook and Twitter have offered significant alternatives to traditional email, the net cast by traditional email still covers by far the greatest audience. A successful web strategy will therefore attempt to make the most from this powerful internet tool to help interact with a business or organisation's targeted market or audeince.

How does email marketing work?

• Email marketing essentially begins with a professional website that has informative and reliable content, and shows off your products or services to your target audience.
• Visitors to the website are offered to subscribe to marketing material such as a newsletter or special offer announcements. They will be emailed this material on an ongoing basis (bi-monthly, monthly, quarterly etc).
• To be able to offer subsrciptions, and to manage these subscriptions, an Email Marketing program is required. This can either be integrated as part of your website, or as a third party setup.
• The Email Marketing program enables the site owner to write the marketing material such as email newsletters, surveys, special offers, invites etc. Once the material is finalised, it is then emailed out to all subscribers in a list.
• The Email Marketing prgram offers a variety of tools and analytics to monitor the success of your campaigns.
• As subscribers read your marketing material they follow links back to your website, and may forward your email on to friends or colleagues who in turn may visit your website and susbcribe to your email marketing material themselves.

Since it is so cost efficient and accessible, it is not unusual for office workers to receive from 40 to 60 emails a day. Your newsletter will therefore need to stand out in their inboxes by being perceived as an unrivalled piece of information. Following the golden rules below will ensure successful email campaigns.

EMAIL MARKETING tips

Target audience
Before setting out with email marketing, consider who your target audience might be, and how you can grow your list of subscribers. The most obvious way will be for visitors to your website to choose to click on a subscription link and sign up with their email address to receive your email marketing material. For those customers who may have contacted you via the telephone, you could inform them of your email marketing material and suggest that they subscribe.It is important for your reputation, as well as ensuring your isp is not listed for spam.
Only email people who have
 - opted in from your site (newsletter subscription).
 - purchased from you within 2 years
 - handed you their business card knowing you would contact them.
 - completed an offline form and indicated they wanted to be emailed.
Do not email anyone if:
 - you obtained the email addresses from a third party (incl. purchased a list).
 - you copied their address from the Internet.
 - you haven’t been in contact over two years.

Content
With so many emails being sent and recevied each day, you need to ensure that your email marketing material will be of interest to your target audience, and hopefully drive more traffic to your website, or at the very least, ensure people do not unsubscribe.Try to give your material its own personality or feel, which you can carry over to future emails for continuity.

• Your material should not appear computer generated. If it is a newsletter you are emailing out, consider recent stories, testimonials, and other informative or educational content.
• Try to maintian your brand in any email amrketing material.
• Do not send an email out with poor content, just because you feel you have to meet a scheduled deadline - this could result in numerous unsubscriptions.
• Do not try to hard sell your products using email marketing material.

People prefer 'punchy', brief, eye-catching material. HTML format with photos and embedded hyperlinks will look better than email-like, text format. But this does depend on your target audeince. Email technology was not designed for great visual effect. If is often better to provide interesting and enticing snippets of info to attract visitors to your website, which is a far better medium to show off your products and services.

When putting your material together, remeber to use the various tools and techniques offered by online rather than print material:

• Title or Newsletter Subject: Be creative (e.g. Whale Sharks Return) as opposed to non descriptive, dull titles (e.g. March News - ABC Dive Centre).
• Headings: Catchy headings keep readers focused.
• Hyperlinks: Direct your readers to your website or another website to see more on a certain topic.
• Content: Keep it 'easy on the eye', bold your keyphrases, use bullet points, put in one ot two 'call-to-action' features.
• Images: Include images, but remember to compress them and do not over-use them
• Keywords: Keep keywords in keeping with your website, and SEO keyword research.
• 'Unsubscribe' - ensure readers can easily find an unsibscribe button, and the process is quick and easy.

When writing your content, bear in mind that your email will be one of nemerous that the recipeint will view on a given day, it needs to be catchy and stand out. Your design should look modern, professional, and in line with your company branding and marketing themes. (nvie colleagues and staff to contribute their views, and other content towards your marketing material

When to send
Aim for regularity and consistency:

• Monthly or bi-monthly newsletters are manageable for small businesses.
• Seasonal newsletters are also popular
• Use a different format (e.g. news flash) to communicate a different message or a limited offer.
• Write down every newsletter idea when they arise. A “newsletter ideas book” is a good way to keep track of everything you want to say.
• Avoid sending out newsletters when you have nothing to say. A boring newsletter might negatively affect your next newsletter’s opening rate.

Think about what time of the day is best for your clients to receive your message. Sending the email on a Friday evening will only ensure sure your newsletter is at the bottom of their inboxes on a Monday morning. Newsletters sent on Monday and Tuesdays usually get the highest opening rate.

How to send out your email marketing material.
Email programs such as MS Outlook are not designed for sending out email marketing material such as newsletters or surveys, so you should avoid sending your material out using these programs. It is important that you use a specialised email marketing program. This will ensure that:

 - Your emails look consistent and professional, regardless of which email client they are opened in (such as Outlook, Gmail, Hotmail etc)
 - Your email marketing material will havestats records which can be anaylsed using your email marketing program, and assist you in future marketing campaigns. Such stats incluide, opening rate, clicks on attachements, which hyperlins where clicked etc)
 - You can personalise the email content (i.e. Dear Mary) in your marketing material.
 - Using your own email program such as Outlook will result in your makreting material not looking prfoessional.
 - Your email has a higher chance of being marked as spam or junk mail
 - Emails will be send out using a dedicated email broadcasting server

final considerations

• Include at least one 'call-to-action' in your email marketing material, for example, a link to special offers page of your website.
• You cannot test your material enough! Send out test emails to all of the various mainstream email cleints such Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail.
• Monitor your statisitcs and track the number of enquiries you receive after your marketing material was sent out. Keep an eye on your website traffic once an email has been sent out.