e-Marketing - Why Talking To Your Customers Makes Perfect Sense

By: Darryl Antonio
Submitted: 2007-01-17 13:14:49
Print this article | Tell a friend | For publisher |

Rating:

 

With the ongoing vagaries of the search engine ranking game savvy marketers are starting to adopt a more aggressive stance to e-Marketing than ever before

As most traditional marketing efforts focus on acquiring new customers one of the most overlooked elements for strong online success is communication with new, existing and future customers

And here’s why? - With response rates up to 5 times that of direct marketing, e-Marketing has fast become an integral part of most successful companies marketing strategies

Companies such as IBM, Dell, Apple & Sony all use e-Marketing largely attracted by the fact that they can tap into a global marketplace with a few simple clicks of their respective mice

But where do you start and how do you know what works and what doesn't and what will suit your particular business?

Perhaps it helps at the outset to get a clear understanding of what e-Marketing does mean?

e-Marketing or email marketing is simply an easy vehicle to communicate interactively with your customers and opt-in subscriber database via email

Most successful companies that I help and advise use emails to inform and reward their readership through regular news bulletins and special offers newsletters

You’ve probably heard this a thousand times before that ‘the money is in the list’

The simple truth is that by nurturing your relationships with your existing customer base and opt-in subscriber lists, you will most definitely see both your profits and customer loyalty increase tenfold

Recent studies featured below have highlighted some of the clear disparities between the response rates of the following marketing disciplines:

0.5% - 1% Banner ads

1% - 2% Direct Mail

10% - 15% Opt-in Email

Given the above figures, it does make perfect business sense to adopt e-Marketing into the conventional mix to drive traffic, further increase revenue and profits and encourage brand loyalty

And because it is one of the cheapest forms of marketing online it does pack a pretty powerful argument for serious consideration

So, what are the most important ingredients to run a successful e-marketing campaign?

Firstly, and the most obvious one of course is to have sections on your web sites where visitors can opt-in to receive your special offer newsletters, new product launch notifications etc;

Before embarking on any campaign the first thing to do however, is to draw up a quick checklist that will serve to focus on what you want to achieve from each campaign and why?

Below are some of the questions that you should be asking:

1. Is there something about you or your company that will benefit your customers to know about?

2. Do you have any special offer products to reward customer loyalty and boost sales?

3. What are you not offering your existing customer base that you could possibly be offering them?

4. What would happen if you doubled your contact/communication with them?

We’re all too aware that the over abundance of spam email has somewhat jaded the online community, so you must ensure that your email offers and newsletters are carefully targeted to suit your existing customer base

And above all keep it relatively short as most people receiving your email communication have limited time to deliberate over the content and consider the products they may want to purchase

The key is to make sure your messages are clear, concise, and serve as a convenience factor for your target audience

Get this right and the rewards for you can be quite simply staggering with unprecedented sales, repeat orders and happy loyal customers

Darryl Antonio has advised and run e-Marketing and email campaigns for companies in the some of the toughest industries online acheive phenomenal success over the past 7 years

He can be contacted at darryl@loyal-e.com or alternatively click on http://www.loyal-e.com/why.htm for more information

Article source: Expert Articles