Email Marketing

What could be better? A marketing piece that's easy to use, costs no money to produce, costs next to nothing to send, and reaches millions of prospects in a matter of minutes. That's email marketing, one the most cost-effective ways for an online business to market and get people to purchase goods and services. There simply isn't an easier, cheaper, more direct way to talk to someone online.

Though it sounds easy, email marketing takes a lot of work to do right. You start with a clean email list of people who have confirmed their willingness to receive your email offer (have opted in). Then, you target and personalize that offer for the best response. And that's the most important part of email marketingsending only to those who have asked to receive your offers. With your Yahoo! store, you can sign up for Campaigner by GOT, an integrated Web-based email-marketing tool that enables you to collect opt-in emails during the checkout process. You can sign up for an account by clicking the Email Marketing link in the Store Manager's Promote column.

Spam is the opposite of responsible, or opt-in, email marketing. And spam is the bane of any good email-marketing program. Though sales might be made from spamming email addresses, your online business reputation can be harmed in the process. In addition, spamming violates the Yahoo! store Terms of Service. Spam can get your store closed. But you don't need to spam to mass-mail. If you follow the CAN-SPAM Privacy Act of January 1, 2004, you can still market through unsolicited mail. It's easy to abide by the law, and you might see a response rate of 15% to 25%.

So before you plan your grandiose email-marketing scheme, be aware that opt-in email marketing is really permission marketing. It's a good idea to find out how to get that permission and the ways to get the best results.

Tip: What's Opt-In Email?

Opt-in email is the direct opposite of spam (unsolicited emails). People who opt into an email list have said in advance that they are willing to receive unsolicited email from companies on the Net that meet the list criteria. For example, someone who wants to be kept informed of newly released software might opt into an email list that announces new software products. With Yahoo! store, you can also include and customize a Catalog Request form to collect opt-in emails. Visitors who click on the Request button are taken to a page where they can enter their name, email, address, and any comments to request a catalog or join your newsletter. Merchants can also customize the request form to collect other customer information or data for marketing purposes.

Best Practices of Permission Marketing

So just what is meant by permission marketing? Permission marketing means getting the consumer's permission to email an offer before it shows up in the email box.

Sound simple? But that's not all.

First of all, if at any time the consumer wants to opt out of your email-marketing pieces, he or she needs to be able to easily do so by visiting your website or clicking an automated link in the email. Either set up an automated system that removes an email address from your database when a recipient clicks on it, or create a separate opt-out URL on your site where recipients can go to remove their email address from your list. The law also says this must be processed within 10 days.

Secondand very importantthese consumers gave you permission, not anyone else, permission to email them. Don't give or sell email addresses (that is, consumers' permission to be emailed) to any other company or person. If you do, you need to clearly state your intentions in your privacy policy.

With permission marketing, you get by giving. Although spammers are currently getting good response rates on their email spams, that's changing fast. Consumers are wising up and are demanding that the spammers be curbed. That's being done in two ways:

• The Realtime Blackhole List (RBL)

• The CAN-SPAM Privacy Act

If you're thinking about spamming, think about these first. Antispammers rarely complain just to their Internet service provider (ISP). They complain to your ISP, your ISP's backbone provider, and just about everyone else who is in between you and the electronic path to the recipient. These providers will often terminate your Net connection, if only to stop the complaints.

Web Resource: ROI Calculators

You can use these free ROI calculators to track your advertising and promotion results. (You must have a Flash program on your computer to use them.)

• Conversion rate calculator at www.bplans.com/common/calculators/conversionrate.cfm

• Pay-per-click ROI calculator at www.bplans.com/common/calculators/ppcroi.cfm

• Email ROI calculator at www.bplans.com/common/calculators/email_roi.cfm

• Break-even calculator at www.bplans.com/common/calculators/breakeven.cfm

Tip: Email-Marketing Tips

• Make it personal: "Hello Bob. Here is the next. ..."

• Be sure it has specific value content for the specific demographic you are sending it to.

• Send with the appropriate frequency: too long, and it's not enough; too often, and it might be annoying.

• Put a price on the front. If you have two newsletters on your desk and you notice a $19.95 or $9.95 price in the corner on one, and nothing on the other, which has the higher perceived value?

• Keep it succinct. A really good one-page newsletter might be better received than a nine-page one.

• If it's an HTML email, add some graphics. A photo can quickly summarize the content, and an email with a photo has a 60% higher response rate than one without.

• Write "What's in it for me?" headlines, like this: "The Five Things YOU Need to Know About. . ." or "What You Don't Know Can Cost You."

• Use sans-serif fonts.

• Include all of your contact information throughout: your name, physical address, URL, 800 number, and so on.

• Include all of your branding: logo, colors, graphics, and so on.

• Include your "call to action" conversion message.

• Add hyperlinks to "More Information" and "Buy Now" or other conversion.

• Use hyperlinks to drive consumers to a particular Web page, the home page for branding, the catalog page for searching, or the product page for buying.

• Include your Opt Out radio button or link.

• Include your privacy policy or link.

• Make your subject truthful and compelling.

• Be sure that the "from" email address is legitimate and contains "What's in it for me?" keywords, such as "Success Department."

• Put your "What's in it for me?" message in the first five words so it shows in a preview pane.

• Keep phrases such as "Discount," "Save," and "Lowest Rates" out of your subject.

• Check your newsletter email with a free spam checker, such as the one at www.ezinecheck.com/check.html.

• Use columnar format or mimic the look and feel of an industry publication, such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, or Scientific American.

• Offer links to supplies and other noncompeting companies you do business with in exchange for reciprocal links on Web pages to you.

If losing your Internet connection is not scary enough, then listen to this: The Mail Abuse Prevention System, at www.mail.abuse.org, runs the Realtime Blackhole List (RBL). They have compiled a list of IP addresses of known spammers and offer this list to their subscribers. Who are these subscribers? Email administrators. Using the RBL list, these administrators reject any email that originates from those IP addresses. That's right, any emailnot just bulk email!

The CAN-SPAM Privacy Act went into effect on January 1, 2004, and comes with some stiff penalties; however, compliance is easy. Requirements include "The subject line must be truthful" and "the return email address must be real" and "There must be a conspicuous Opt-Out." At several websites, you can paste your emails to have them checked against all the SPAM Checker rules. The sites analyze your email and comment on how to correct them to be sure they go through.

Here are a few sites:

• www.enetplace.com/spam-checker.html

• www.lyris.com/resources/contentchecker

• http://spamcheck.sitesell.com

Getting permission is extremely important for your email-marketing strategy and the reputation of your e-business. Plan to do it right.

Choosing a Proper Opt-In Email List

When you have your email marketing campaign ready to go, you need a list of prospects to send it to. Keeping in mind the CAN-SPAM Act and the Realtime Blackhole List, you want to make sure that recipients on the email list you rent have given the list broker permission to email to them.

Tip: Don't Precheck Permission

When collecting information from the consumer as a way to build your customer database, make sure you ask the consumers' permission to send them emails. Even if they have bought from you, answered a survey for a free gift, or given you information for whatever reason, you still should provide a check box on the form asking if they would like to receive further emails form you. Do not automatically precheck the box; have them check it manually.

This called an opt-in email list. An opt-in email is the direct opposite of spam. People who opt into an email list have said in advance that they are willing to receive unsolicited email from companies on the Net that meet the list criteria. For example, someone who wants to be kept informed of newly released software might opt into an email list that announces new software products.

If you want to email responsibly, use the services of the opt-in list companies on the Net to prospect for new customers. The first company to collect, categorize, and offer for sale nonspam opt-in email lists is Postmaster Direct, at www.postmasterdirect.com. The company offers for rent lists of 30 million consumers in more than 400 categories and demographic breakdowns.

So what is double opt-in? According to the New Zealand marketing Association, "Double opt-in is an email subscription practice that allows marketers to ask new email subscribers to confirm (via email) that they want to be added to an email distribution list for promotions, before the subscriber actually receives the information. The double confirmation is the best guarantee of user interest."

Here are some keys rules for doing email permission marketing:

• Identify yourself Let your prospective customers know who you are right up front. If you've rented an opt-in list, remind consumers that they opted in. Include a sentence reminding them why they're receiving your email. Also, if you're mailing to another business, send your email from either a real person in your company or at least an alias with a title.

• Always provide a "from" line Give recipients a valid address to which they can reply.

• Keep the subject line short The subject line is the outer envelope of an email campaign. This is the vehicle that decides whether your message will be read. Your choice of wordsand the length of the messageis critical. Keep the number of words in the subject line to no more than 35 characters.

• Keep the message short Keep your message less than one page: Email is most effective when it's short and simple. After you introduce yourself, give a brief description of your offer. Capture consumers' attention the first two or three lines. Within the offer, give them a link to click or refer them to the URL of the buying page. Keep the message to 500 words.

• Provide value for their time Make it a compelling or limited-time offer. Offer something that consumers couldn't already buy from your site: perhaps an exclusive offer made only through your email. Offer coupons or a free sample. According to Forrester Research, two-thirds of consumers like free samples, but only one-third of merchants offer them.

• Be ready to apologize People's memory can be short, and they can forget that they opted into the list. Additionally, consumers' tastes or needs might have changed. If they complain or ask to be removed from your list, respond immediately and politely through an auto-responder. You have 10 days to remove a customer after such a request.

• Make it easy to unsubscribe Place your unsubscribe instructions at both the beginning and the end of your email message. Don't make consumers call a phone number to unsubscribe. The law says you must provide a link to quickly and easily unsubscribe.

Web Resource: Stay Up-to-Date

Check out the free weekly newsletters offered by DMnews to stay up-to-date on email issues affecting marketers today. The newsletters also cover case studies of successful email campaigns.

Email marketing for prospects and customers can be a valuable addition to the acquisition strategy of your marketing plan. Keep in mind the important points of what you've read here, to help build a successful email-marketing program.