Using E-Mail Marketing Campaigns and Newsletters to Reach Customers

As businesses are finding out, e-mail marketing campaigns are one of the most effective ways to keep customers coming back to their small-business websites. E-mail can also be a cost-effective way to keep in closer contact with customers and build brand awareness and loyalty.

What follows is a selection of best practices culled from some e-mail marketing veterans at smaller companies.

Small businesses are using a variety of ideas to develop interesting, useful and fun email marketing campaigns. Many businesses layout their e-mails as newsletters and market them as such. This format can give a friendlier feel and do a better job of building a relationship with customers while keeping your name in front of them. Some of my favourite small-business newsletters feature some of the following:

• Special offers and prices
   
• Clever, unique information. This can transform your message from a simple sales pitch to a resource designed to help your customers
   
• Entice them back to your Web site. "Tickle" customers with hints about new information on your Web site, using the e-mail to entice them back
   
• Share info about new products and services
   
• Entertainment. You may want to add some light entertaining pieces, like jokes to your email

I'm surprised at how many small businesses market their e-mail list by saying nothing more than "join our e-mail list." It's hard to imagine that thousands of people will sign up with so little to persuade them. Here are some of the tactics to encourage people to join your e-mail list:

Tell your customers and prospects what valuable information or offers they'll get. It sounds ridiculously simple, but few small businesses tell people what their e-mail newsletter is about when asking for sign-ups.

• Include links to prior newsletters
  Consider putting links to old newsletters so people can see what they'll be getting.
   
• Give customers and prospects many chances to join
  Put invitations to join your e-mail list in several places on your Web site. Make sure there is an invitation on the front page, and put sign-up boxes on various internal pages. When a customer has entered an e-mail address for any other reason (e.g., placing an order), have a box there to allow them to join your e-mail newsletter with just one click.
   
• Limit demographic questions
  Make it easy to join your list. If you are using an e-mail service to manage your list, you likely will have the option of asking demographic questions of people who sign up. Remember that each question you add will reduce the number of people who sign up. It is a difficult trade-off because demographic information can help you target messages better. The ideal solution is to limit the number of questions you ask during the sign-up process, but follow up with questions in a later e-mail that helps you target messages better. Many firms offer customers special rewards for sharing information, with benefits ranging from special discounts to the promise that future e-mails will be of more interest. However, customising messages based on demographics requires a more sophisticated e-mail list service, so you may want to keep the questions during the sign-up to a bare minimum to increase your list.
   
• Sign people up offline
  Have an e-mail list in your storefront or office where people can write their email address and join.
   
• Welcome them with the most recent newsletter
  Each time a new customer joins your list send a welcome e-mail that includes the most recent newsletter. Most of the e-mail list management services can be set up to do this automatically.

Should you create your e-mail newsletter as an HTML newsletter or as a plain text newsletter? Most of the e-mail list services allow you to send HTML messages, and by using HTML, you can add graphics and use multiple type fonts, so it will look more like a professionally printed publication. The downside to HTML e-mail is that it can annoy customers and take forever to download, especially over slow modems. And it's time consuming to create an HTML newsletter.

But the upside is compelling. The colours, multiple fonts and graphical possibilities with HTML e-mail can make newsletters more pleasing to the eye and much easier to scan. The ideal solution is to offer both. Some email services can identify the customer e-mail reader and send HTML or plain text messages accordingly. Alternatively, you can offer customers a choice. But businesses with few resources may find it too time and resource intensive to offer both. One solution is to start with text, and graduate to HTML as your list expands.