E-mail marketing works, there's no denying it. Its key advantage over other Internet
marketing methods is that it enables you to contact the customer instead of forcing
the customer to contact you. This ability is especially useful when something that
your customers need to know as soon as possible has happened. Whether you've just
released a new product or decided to cut your prices by 10%, the fastest way to
spread the word is via E-mail.
However, unless you want to give your company a bad name, you can't simply start
sending E-mails to people that haven't agreed to receive them. The only ethical
and reasonable way to advertise via E-mail is to first obtain a permission, or an
opt-in request, from the receiver. The trouble is that this can't be done via E-mail,
as it would be similar to asking someone whether you can ask them a question. What's
the point in doing that, when you've already done what you wanted them to allow
you to do?
Getting people to opt-in ========================
Due to the above reasons, creating your own opt-in E-mail database is not an
easy task. In addition, because of privacy concerns and the fear of spam, many people
are reluctant to give out their E-mail address without a good reason to do so. These
fears can be soothed by creating a strict privacy policy and sticking to it, but
it's harder to convince your visitors that it would be in their best interest to
reveal their E-mail address to you. Fortunately, there are some time-tested solutions
available for that problem as well:
1. Arrange a sweepstakes with an attractive grand prize, for example one of the
more expensive products sold on your site. Require everyone who wants to enter the
drawing to give out his E-mail address and agree to receive occasional E-mails from
you.
To get the best possible results, it is advisable to declare that the winner
will be contacted via E-mail and needs to claim the prize within 7 days in order
to receive it. By doing so, you'll eliminate the problem of people giving out bogus
E-mail addresses in order to avoid receiving advertisements.
2. Open a discussion forum on your site. By only allowing registered users to
post, you can collect E-mail addresses and deter pranksters from writing abusive
messages at the same time. However, if you decide to use this method to build your
list, be very careful. Sending advertisements too frequently to the regulars of
your forum may cause them to move elsewhere and thus reduce the traffic to your
site.
3. Start publishing a newsletter. Although it requires quite a bit of work, an
interesting newsletter quickly gathers subscribers and increases the size of your
E-mail database. An additional advantage of having a newsletter versus a simple
E-mail announcement service is that you'll be able to submit to the multiple newsletter
directories on the Internet.
4. Continue to allow everyone to access most of the content on your site, but
also add a "Members only" area that contains articles or other information that
is valuable to your visitors. Give out free memberships, but require members to
register, reveal their E-mail addresses and allow you to send them an E-mail advertisement
every now and then.
This idea is especially suitable if you're eventually planning to charge for
some of the content you provide. The step from requiring your visitors to register
to requiring them to pay is smaller than moving from giving everything for free
to fee-based access.
5. Whenever you ask your visitors to give out their E-mail address, remember
to offer them the possibility to join your opt-in mailing list at the same time.
Do you have a form on your site that allows the visitors to contact the webmaster
or the sales department? Perhaps you have a Tell-A-Friend script that asks for the
sender's E-mail address and name? Both are excellent opportunities to suggest subscribing
to your E-mail announcement list or newsletter to your visitors.
If you want to gather a sizeable list of E-mail addresses from your visitors,
you shouldn't be afraid of trying hard to get them. Just keep in mind that there
is a fine line between being persuasive and being annoying. Don't cross it.
