First we are not talking about spamming. What we are going to be discussing is using a direct email marketing strategy to get you noticed and valued by your potential and especially current customers. Direct email is a personal way of communicating with your customers. Face-to-face encounters with people is the most direct and effective way of communicating with your customers but it isn’t really possible to do over the Internet. Phone calls would also be effective but they are cost and time prohibitive and it isn’t really convenient for those you are trying to communicate with either.
People love email, though, when it is targeted to them personally and not some obvious ploy by an anonymous entity trying to scam them out of something. People love community and they love communicating. They love getting noticed and feeling like someone is watching out for them. Your goal is to try and give them that. Make them feel special and like you are really trying to find them the best deals on things that they truly need and want. It is also a way for people to feel like they are connected to something.
One thing that you have to consider when taking on a direct Email marketing strategy is to send it to the right person. Carefully selecting your target market will keep costs down and rates of response up. There are many ways to find these targets using sales leads or list brokers, but they may not be the best places to get them. You want it to be from people who have already had an encounter with you in one way or another. Find a way for them to not just see what you have to offer but to ask for information that can only be given to them though an email. Let them know that you have some secret that you want to share with them that can give them what they want or need or that can make them better off.
When they have asked for that information, customize it and personalize it as much as possible. You need to make each email seem as useful as it can be to them. Make sure that the title isn’t something that looks like spam or like you are trying to sell them something. It may be that a newsletter is best. Whatever the case, let it look like you are sending them something different than what other people are sending them. Also don’t let it look like you are trying to send them the same thing over and over. Make each email you send in this marketing strategy as unique as possible.
What is really going to help is giving them an opportunity to recommend you to someone else. Find a way for them to send an email to friends and associates who might be interested in the same thing. Referrals are the key to building any business and the Internet has ways of making it easy. A carefully crafted marketing strategy will have a place where you can do this. It will enable the process to be repeated as each person you get on your ever increasing email list opens new doors of opportunity.
