e-skills UK Guide
Promoting your business using email
Using email to win new business
For many small businesses the thoughts of contacting thousands of potential customers from one easy to write email is very tempting. It costs almost nothing and you can get your message out almost immediately.
In reality this type of marketing actually has its own label – spamming. If you are unsure what spam is take a look at the Eliminating Spam Guide.
It is possible to use email to effectively win new customers if you use it wisely. This project will take you through that process, but remember this is not a marketing guide so we cannot help you with the actual content of your message.
Why use email marketing?
As we have already discussed it is a very cheap medium to reach a lot of potential customers as there are estimated to be over 450 million email inboxes worldwide. You can create awareness quickly and if you build a strong message you may find better responses from emails than hard copy mailers. It enables you to build newsworthy and up to the minute offers, especially if you work in a business that may be price sensitive and needs to move volumes of product to achieve targets.
When not to use email marketing
Think about your customers. Are they in a trade or user base that does not use a computer? If so there is little point in creating an email offer if they never get near a computer. Email marketing can also be seen as “down market” and is so closely associated with spamming that you may get tarred with the same brush, no matter how legitimate your offer. Therefore your reputation may be at risk unless you are very careful.
Email lists
There are a large number of people on the internet that sell lists of email addresses. Many of these will lay claim to all sorts of response rates and accuracy of their data, and the ability for them to sell you 10,000 email names that are “live” and fit your target market.
Be very careful of such offers.
Validate the company selling the data and make sure they are reputable. What other clients do they have and what response rate did they get? Follow up any references to make sure they are real. If in doubt choose another supplier – after all it is your reputation at risk here.
Any list broker you work with must guarantee that the email address owners have opted in to and confirmed they wish to receive emails. Do not buy CDs with millions of names and email addresses on them. These have been created using automated software (mostly spam) and their use is illegal as it is spamming.
In reality the best email list you can get is one that you have built up over time in your own business, with supporting data about the purchases a client has made AND an agreement from the client to receive email offers.
Email list providers include:
Email list software
It is possible to use products such as Microsoft Outlook to send mailings, but you will need to manually manage users requesting to opt out of future mails. Sending bulk email through your ISP may violate your user contract and have you categorised as a spammer.
Remember that if you put all of the recipients in the To: or CC: line everyone will see everyone else on the list and replies and bounced messages may go to everyone. In most email programs if you use the BCC: (blind carbon copy) field for the email addresses people will not see who else is on the list.
If you are sending out an emailing you must make sure that your anti virus software is up to date. If you send out a virus to 1000 potential customers you can guarantee none of them will be impressed.
List management can be difficult. If you are sending out a lot of legitimate, non-spam emails then it may be an idea to invest in some list management software that is designed to help you manage the names and addresses of recipients. A hosted solution may cost you £200 per month, but the provider will be responsible for managing your email traffic.
The following software way help in managing your email lists:
Email response tracking
Knowing how successful your emails have been is critical. There are a couple of techniques you can use to measure the response rate.
If you embed a link to a specific web page, created for the promotion, you can see how many people click through to the page. You could also originate the email from a different email address, such as “JanuaryOffer@Businessname.com” ,and track the replies you get to that email inbox.
Email and the UK law
Very simply if you are emailing out marketing messages then the recipient MUST have agreed to receive the message or you already have them on your list as a legitimate buying customer. You MUST make it clear who is sending the message (i.e. your email address) and you MUST provide a current address for the recipient to use to contact you to withdraw their consent for mailings.
Commercial suppliers
We do not recommend specific products or suppliers; instead we provide you with a representative sample which covers the range of suppliers/products available. You may choose to look at these suppliers or products but this is entirely at your discretion.
What Now
* In order to print the guide or open it in PDF format, you will need to install Adobe Acrobat Reader.
