Email Marketing Thoughts - 1

Here are some things which is essential for conducting an email marketing .These are random thoughts and any Suggestion/correction on it will be appreciated

1. Reason : the most important thing while doing email marketing is the purpose or the reason of sending out emails. This will determine the whole campaign.

Whether it is to inform the prospects about new products or is it about some new features or new scheme. Is the purpose of the mail to get the details of the prospects or invite them to register themselves for your exhibition or promotion. Well there can be a million reason you can think of for sending out an email, but make sure that the reason is of some value to the customer.

True you cannot provide value to everyone you send but make sure the people whom you are sending it, would be interested to receive it. ( Technically- Make sure you have the permission to send email to them - opt-in list).

2. Presentation /Copy : okay you have a very good reason for ex: inviting your prospect/customer base to visit your stand in an exhibition, the next step would be to have proper presentation or copy that would entice the email recipient to act on it. There are three elements in the email copy that needs to be worked on

• Subject Line -Subject Line would be the one that would generate interest or familiarity so that the user opens the mail.
• Email Body -The Email body will have the content that will provide value and be of some interest to the user and thirdly
• Landing Page-there would be a link on the email that will take the user to a webpage with more details and information (landing page).
  
  ....getting confused???....I hope not...Will continue

If the user has opened the landing page ,and the landing page in turn will help the user to complete what the user had started while opening the email for ex: if the email is the invite for exhibition the landing page may be a thank you page for giving the details for registration or be a page with form for collecting the detail Incase the email doesn't have the registration form.The email has been successful in getting the user to the landing page...

I guess I have created more confusion...:-)...Send in your comment if you are not comfortable understanding the text the way it is written.

3. Email Database: Its THE MOST IMPORTANT criteria for any email campaign and one of the most neglected activity. Very few firms really scan through the database and the customer profile before sending out the email. Mostly the thinking is that the more the email sent the more the chance of getting a response...Which is true but its no use sending a raincoat ad email campaign in dubai (not sure whether this hold true now..it has rained in dubai this year)or an advert of a service station in jebel ali being send out to persons living in fujairah, RAK or even sharjah or deira.
Also noted that most of the companies don't harvest the email database inhouse they buy it from outside..While its known fact the email addresses collected from companies database or prospect would more reliable than that purchased through outside agency...Will cover this topic in detail later..

4. Technology: The email copy has to be complaint in various platform or browsers and should be tested before sending out. If an email is opened in an outlook express or Internet explorer or Netscape ..it should be visible in the way it is intended to be and not just jumbles of codes. Email service providers also needs to be tested like email copy at yahoo address may be visible properly but that same email won't be visible properly in AOL. These technical issues have to be first sorted out and tested...will cover this in detail later

Well that it for today...Awaiting your comments and will continue on this tomorrow. Thanks for reading

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