Opt For An E-mail Marketing System

Promotion via e-mail is the status quo for most organizations. However, effective e-marketing is not always the norm.

The first step is to find an e-mail marketing service that suits the size and needs of your business. Examples of e-mail systems include Constant Contact, Marketvolt or IContact. The benefits vary but can include:
- tracking actions of database group
- storing and managing e-mails
- easy Web sign-up
- maintaining integrity of database
- targeting clients
- making one e-mail for html and text versions

Translation. Different e-mail readers, such as Yahoo!, Outlook, Thunderbird or Gmail, allow various degrees of html-formatted or text e-mails. This is a bit of a hassle. If you are sending messages with images and graphics from your Outlook, the e-mail may or may not open in certain e-mail readers. Or, others have restrictions on attachments.

So, you, the sender, either need to keep a list of each users preferred format, maintain two databases and send two e-mails... unless you are benefitting from an e-mail service that automatically determines the end-users e-mail reader needs. And since first impressions are key, an e-mail system will usually provide text versions of an e-mail with a link to the html-formatted newsletter or coupon that you've created.

Relevance is key. An e-mail service allows you to see what e-mails are bouncing so that you can maintain the integrity of your database list. Further, it also tracks who is opening your e-mail and what links are of most interest to your readers. This allows you to better cater your information or promotion in the future or to target customers with particular interests.

Database integrity. Nobody wants spam. Thankfully, most e-mail services take the legal hassels off your agenda and automotically create links that allow people to opt-out of their subscription.

Each e-mail service has its own functionalities and costs and should be carefully assessed based on a company's needs.

Check back for tips on how to build and maintain your database of contacts.