Email marketing used to have a really bad reputation but it’s finally managed to claw its way back into people’s good books.
Still, it’s all too often thought of as being the same thing as spam and many companies have marketing practices that don’t allow for much of a distinction.
Even as an affiliate you will find that when ever joining an affiliate program your a governed by their terms of service about how you email any promotions.
The problem is that there are more reasons not to spam other than the fact that more and more email programs are blocking those types of messages. People simply don’t like it and your reputation will get hurt a lot if you resort to those kinds of black-hat practices.
So the question becomes this, how do you launch a successful email marketing campaign without getting people to relate you to spam?
No Spam Here! Email Marketing The Right Way…
There are many things you can do to help draw the line between the way you will end up marketing your product or service, and spamming. Some of those distinctions are actually mandated by anti spamming laws.
Incidentally, those laws which carry big fines are a good reason all by themselves to keep from being associated or even accused of spamming.
The first thing you need to do is ensure that you are running a permission based email marketing campaign. This means all of the email addresses you are sending your message out to need to be collected through legal and fair practices. The most popular methods of collecting addresses are quite simple actually.
All you really have to do is ask. On your website you can advertise an email sign up list, and you can even have a contest to work as an incentive. Also, at the time of purchase when email addresses are given to you anyway, you can request permission to send regular notices. The good thing about these methods is that you know your emails are going to your target market.
Keep Your Email Marketing Relevant To Your Niche
Then once you start sending out your emails, whether it be newsletters or promotional advertisements, you should make it very clear who the email is from and why it’s being sent. Also, try to keep it as professional looking as possible and not fill it with anything that can be misinterpreted as phishing. All of the information you include in your content should be relevant to your business and the recipient.
If you are a online business owner or even affiliate marketer then it is in your best interests to ensure you are not going to be accused of spamming. It is simple to do and with the help of services like Aweber and Getresponse which are cheap at half the price when you consider the implications of spam.
Basically, all of that means that you shouldn’t be sending out emails that are marketing something completely different than what the recipient had in mind when they first gave you permission to send things to them. If you are a business that deals with cars, don’t start using your permission based list to send out information and advertisements about vacation deals.
Make Sure Your Email Marketing Includes An Unsubscribe Optin
Also, somewhere in the email should be a clear and easily located option for opting out of any future emails as well as you business address. This is a legal requirement in many places, but more than that it demonstrates a level of trust in the recipient as well as your product.
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The best thing you can accomplish with your email marketing is to have recipients pass your advertisements along to their friends. By keeping all of these above points in mind you are a lot more likely to have this happen, because no one will think they’ll be viewed as aiding spam.
Rolv Heggenhougen says
Companies seem to ignore the single largest online branding/advertising venue available: their own regular external emails. Why not use these emails to market the senders company?
You have a website.
You send emails.
Why not multiply your sales-staff by “wrapping” the regular email in an interactive letterhead?
No other marketing or advertising medium is as targeted as an email between people that know each other (as opposed to mass emails). These emails are always read and typically kept.
WrapMail offers a solution that is server-based (i.e. compatible with all email clients), has a complete back-office with a WrapMaker, reporting etc and it is FREE!
AffiliateX says
Hi Rolv and welcome to our site…
You are spot on many webmasters or site owners forget about their email presentation as being part of their actual marketing strategy… I had a look at your website and it looks very impressive.
Rolv if you would like to write a review on the services you offer, which I can post to the site I believe it would be a great benefit to the readers and potentially give them a bigger understanding of email marketing and what you can achieve by doing it.
email marketing says
Dear Ron:
My biggest gripe is when a newsletter campaign makes it hard for me to unsubscribe. I am glad you pointed that out. Many times, they hide the unsubscribe link in tiny italicized letters – way down below. I feel like that are trapping me in a cage.
filled with hype.
I also absolutely hate those squeeze pages that have all the text in the middle going down to never never land – with large graphics and crazy fonts.
We are bombarded every which way with sales, gimmicks, and hype. BUT if someone has a really good product or service, that meets a need in my life, that is quite different. But even with that said, marketers should not attack me.
AffiliateX says
Yes I think everyone is agreed on that…
I think us as subscribers need to take more action and if you have subscribed to a newsletter and then constantly get hit with emails doing nothing more than promoting hyped up useless products you need to find the unsubscribe link fast, in most cases you will have to scroll down a bit to find it unfortunately.
I have even found that as the economy got tougher for everyone even the big name Gurus started sending out lots of hyped up emails hoping that their reputation was going to increase their income. What I did was simply start unsubscribing from them.
Clint says
Email marketing is a great tool to utilize. As you have said though, you have to do it right in order to get the success you want. I feel that following your brand/niche is one of the best. Targeting a particular group will allow clients or potential clients to focus on your brand/niche because of their interests or needs. Staying relevant is very important for success and the entire process. This online marketing tool can really create new opportunities for you or your business.
AffiliateX says
Hi Clint
You are spot on with your suggestion Clint, you need to stay very targeted in your niche when sending out email and make sure you are sending any subscribers that you have relevant and useful information not just offer after offer. Most people online today and especially those that subscribe to your list are a lot more informed today and they really don’t tolerate being bombarded with emails doing nothing more than selling.
Add value for your subscribers and the sales will come.