It should go without saying that marketing is a vital part of any business. Companies need to have a strategy to bring in a continuous stream of business and sales. There are a wide variety of means by which businesses can advertise their products and services however despite being one of the most frequently used forms of communication, email is a frequently overlooked channel for marketing. With a little bit of know how you\’ll be surprised at how easy it can be to run an email marketing campaign.

The first thing you need to have is permission from your potential recipients before you go sending them any emails. If your mailing list consists solely of addresses which have been acquired by less than honest means then all of the emails that you send out will simply be disregarded as spam and never read. No one likes their space being invaded so don\’t waste your time. Make sure that all of your current and potential customers have the capability of opting into your mailouts. This way they will know to expect future correspondence from you.

The next step is to draw up a simple marketing plan. There\’s no need to think up lots of elaborate and fancy features to add to your mail out and website in order to get someone to make a purchase – sometimes less is more. Although people like a flashy design, it may sometimes just end up getting in the way of the user journey. When it comes to buying, we just want to know the product details and how much it costs. Making it difficult to find out these simple facts will be a quick way for you to lose business!

Just as you should make it easy for your customers to subscribe to your mailing list, you should make it similarly easy for them to unsubscribe. Sometimes you will have to accept that customers are entitled to lose interest in your service so there is no point forcing further emails down their throat. You may even find that they sign up to your mailing list again in due course.

Ensure that the physical address of your business is always prominently displayed. If customer only has an email address then it limits the number of ways in which they can get in touch with you. Providing an actual address will help to instil confidence in your customer and they will be able to relate to your company in the same way that they would a high street business.

If you are more of a novice when it comes to running an email marketing campaign then an alternative solution would be to approach a company who specialises in providing such a service. They will be able to help you with the design of your mailouts and the way in which they are worded in order to give you the best possible chance of converting your customers into sales.

With a bit of experience you will have no problems running your own email campaigns!

Author Bio: Trevor Richards writes on behalf of Extravision, an email marketing campaign company.

Category: Advice
Keywords: email marketing, email campaign, ecommerce, internet marketing, e-commerce, email, sales