Many people visit your website (your virtual store/office) each week and leave, never to return again. What a waste. If you only had way of identifying who they were, you could easily follow up with them and get them back to your website. Web 2.0 Email Marketing and Autoresponders can do just that!
In this article, another in our series on Web 2.0 Marketing, we will be describing two of the elements in the Web 2.0 Marketing graphic below: Email Marketing and Autoresponders. The reason they are combined in the same article is because they are both email-based, both require a list of recipients, and both are often included in the same software package used for email marketing. However, I will address them as two separate marketing activities because they work differently.
Here is the main difference; Email marketing allows you to send a “single message” to one or more email lists of recipients at the same time; Autoresponders allow you to send a scheduled “series of messages” to one or more lists of recipients over a period of time.
Why Use Email to Market?
Email marketing is far less expensive than other forms of advertising such as direct mail, magazines, newspaper and printed newsletters, especially as volume grows. Each message can be personalized with information about the recipient. Message delivery is almost immediate. Email campaigns can easily be tracked and analyzed. Email marketing is proactive while website only marketing is reactive at best and inactive at worst.
Mail List
The most important aspect of email marketing is the list to which you are emailing. It must contain email addresses of people that meet the following two criteria:
- They have requested to receive emails from you or from the list owner; and
- They have an interest in the topic for which you are emailing.
Anything short of this is considered spamming (which is against the law and can result in hefty fines) and is a total waste of time and effort. So where do you secure this list? There really are only a couple of ways:
Build Your Own List
This is by far the very best list you can ever use because you have a relationship with recipients and/or they have “opted in”. What this means is that recipients have given you permission to email them or requested email messages from you because they are interested in what you have to offer. However, it takes time to build a list like this. Although we will discuss ways to shorten the time it takes, you may prefer to have access to a large email list immediately.
Buy or Rent a List
You can always buy or rent a list that is already available. However, I would not expect a lot from these lists as you will not be the only one using the list and the recipients have had no prior relationship with you. List vendors make their profits from sharing these lists with as many online merchants as possible that will pay for their use. So in the best case, the number of opened emails will be far less than a list that you have built on your own.
In the worst case, an unscrupulous vender will sell you a list where the recipients haven’t even opted in. Regardless, the people on these lists may or may not be your target market; may or may not want your email; and may or may not read it. So look for guarantees and deal only with those list vendors that have a good reputation. The wrong list can get you into a lot of hot water as it can make you appear to be a spammer.
The best way to build a list is to have a form on your website that offers something of real value for subscribing to your email list. Often times a firm will have more than one list with associated forms on their website that visitors may use to subscribe. They might have one for their newsletter and another for some other type of information (i.e. free ebook, whitepaper, etc.).
WARNING: The most important thing to remember is that there are laws governing the use of email marketing. As with all laws, “ignorance is no excuse.” To read and fully understand the CAN-SPAM Act, visit the FTC’s Website.
Email Marketing Software
There are two basic types of email marketing software; software you can buy, host and maintain yourself and software you can rent as a service where the provider hosts and maintains the service. Over time, owning your own software may be less expensive in actual out of pocket expense than subscribing to a service, but there is much more to consider than just the cost. Due to the low cost of a service ($10-$50/month depending on size of list), I prefer to use a service where everything is done for me, except the composition of the message.
Most email services offer hundreds of HTML (web page like) templates that make it easy to compose a very attractive and professionally appearing message. They are constantly upgrading their software with new features. Some have great analytics or allow you to use Google Analytics so that you can determine the effect of a mailing and improve the messages you send. There is less chance of being “blacklisted” for spamming with an email service than with your own software. Last but certainly not least, customer support is great with the most popular emailing services.
There are several email services available; VerticalResponse, Constant Contact, Benchmark Email and iContact, to name a few. I have personally reviewed this option and have even used a couple of them. If all you are going to do is send out periodic emails blasts, any of these will do the job. If you require an autoresponder (see section below on this feature), you can rule out VirticalResponse as it does not have this feature.
My personal preference is Constant Contact for several reasons. First, they are a very popular emailing service, if not the most popular. Second, their service does include an autoresponder (an absolute “must have” for me – see section below on this feature). And third, as a small business counselor for SCORE, I am familiar with it, as that is what they use. SCORE’s combined lists of recipients must total in the millions and it is the volunteers (like me) that use the software. Therefore, I know I will never outgrow it and it is simple to use.
Autoresponders
Many people confuse “autoresponder” with “auto-reply”. Although they both have the common trait of automatically sending a prewritten reply there is a major difference. “Auto-reply” is a standard feature of most email accounts that when activated will reply to all emails received with a “single” message (i.e. “Out of Office”, “On Vacation”, etc.). An “autoresponder” is triggered by entering data (i.e. name, email, etc.) into a subscription form which can be accessible on your website and will send a “series” of scheduled emails.
For example, you can set up an autoresponder to send an email immediately and one every day (or every two or three days) until the series has been delivered. And just like most email marketing software, each email can be personalized to the recipient using the information that was entered to trigger the start of the series.
Autoresponders can be like magic when it comes to building a marketing email list because people will sign up for information they can receive immediately in much higher numbers than they will for “newsletters” or “mail lists” where information may not show up for weeks or months.
Autoresponders are often used to deliver information on a specific topic that can be broken up into a series of “lessons” rather than a single whitepaper. This is because people tend to have short attention spans and although they may “plan” to read an entire whitepaper on something of interest, they often never get around to it. By breaking up information into separate, short modules, people are more likely to read it as it arrives in their inbox rather than waiting until they have more time (which may never come). The last message in the series can include a like to download the entire whitepaper.
Often times, a business will offer a free gift (i.e. report, ebook, whitepaper, etc.) that can be downloaded as an incentive to web visitors for providing their contact information and email address. The link to download the gift is usually included in the autoresponder confirmation email. If you are like most small businesses, you can probably think of dozens of topics for which you can create a series of “lessons”.
Final Word
When properly used, email marketing can be a very effective and inexpensive marketing technique. When improperly used, it can ruin your reputation and get your domain and mail server blacklisted by ISPs all over the world. When you are blacklisted by a list that an ISP uses to detect spam, all of your outbound emails, even your regular email, to that ISP (i.e. AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, MSN, etc.) will be blocked so it is not received by the intended party. This makes it very critical that you follow correct procedures and build your list correctly.
Finally, if you are not yet following this blog, why not do it now so you do not miss a single article in our Web 2.0 Online Marketing Series. All you need to do is click on this “Subscribe by Email” link or the graphic above on the right hand side and enter your email. You will first receive a confirmation email instructing you to click on a link and then from that point on, you will receive an email notice whenever a new article is added to this blog. Each of these notices has a link to unsubscribe should you decide that you no longer wish to receive them.
Those that enjoyed this article, also enjoyed:
Web 2.0 Online Marketing Series
The Elements of a Web 2.0 Website
Web 2.0 Blogging For Business
Web 2.0 SEO – Search Engine Optimization
Web 2.0 Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Web 2.0 Online Press Releases& Articles
Web 2.0 Forum & Blog Commenting
Web 2.0 Professional & Social Networking
Web 2.0 RSS Feeds and Widgets
Web 2.0 Video & Podcasting
Web 2.0 Wikis & Open Source Marketing
Web 2.0 Bookmarking & Reviewing Sites
Web 2.0 Affiliate Marketing Programs
If you would like to contact me, you can do so by emailing me at mike.clough@bestbizpractices.org or visiting my LinkedIn page.
Posted by: Mike Clough
