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Perhaps one of
the biggest secrets of running a business is the fact that,
with the advent of the internet,
entrepreneurs can promote
their businesses in numerous ways that will cost them
nothing financially.
But, even though
there are plenty of low cost and free marketing techniques,
you will have to expend plenty of time to maximize your
marketing efforts. One of the most popular forms of
advertising a business is email marketing. Email can be a
powerful marketing tool, if you know what you're doing.
No one likes to
have spam fill their inbox, and in the United States, spam
is illegal, with the Federal Trade Commission going after
major spammers. Rather than spamming millions of email
addresses, build a list of customers and prospective
customers, and market to them.
You can use your
email as a marketing tool in a variety of ways. For example,
you can create an ezine filled with valuable niche content
that your list can actually use. Or, you can send out emails
announcing your latest product or service. The key is to
make your emails something your list wants and to ensure
those emails are not marked as spam.
Email marketing can be somewhat of a challenge because of the prevalence of spam filters in email programs today. The key to successfully promoting your business with email marketing is to ensure the emails you're sending out will not be flagged as spam. The best and easiest way to ensure you're not sending spam is to enlist the help of a service that scans emails to determine whether or not they will be flagged as spam.
To avoid having
your email marked as spam, avoid such blacklisted words as
"buy now" and "free." But, even if you avoid such words that
are considered spam, make sure you use a paid or free
service like
www.ezinecheck.com to ensure your emails are spam-free.
In addition,
remember that not everyone has high speed internet access.
Therefore, if you're sending out HTML emails, your dialup
customers may find the email download takes far too long and
won't take the time to read your email. So, make sure your
list has the choice between receiving HTML and plain text
email.
Email marketing
can be extremely affective, but don't overdo it. Only email
your list periodically – once a week, every two weeks, or
once a month. If you inundate email inboxes with emails,
you're only going to annoy those people on your list.
Additionally,
ensure you personalize each email by using the list member's
name in the heading, and even in the body, of the email.
Finally, email
marketing can be a hugely successful method of promotion, if
you send directed emails only to those people who have given
you permission to email them. The last thing you want is to
establish a reputation as a spammer.
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