To take advantage of the benefits, a small business owner must understand the potential for email to change the way they do business. This guide provides an overview of the essential components of the email opportunities. E-marketing allows you to tap into new markets and compete globally for only a small investment.



A well planned, targeted e-marketing campaign will reach the right customers (target audience) at a lower cost than traditional marketing methods. E-marketing also provides ecommerce businesses with trackable, measurable results, that can be used to develop a marketing plan, and instead of market research, as well as grade the effectiveness of a marketing campaign.

An email campaign can collect detailed information about customer responses to the advertising campaign, letting businesses compare different methods of promotion and advertising. For example a small business can identify how different catch phrases, email ad campaigns, and adcopy attracts visitors to the website.

Opt-in e-mail marketing

Opt-in e-mail marketing sends e-mails to a list of addresses that was compiled by your company with permission of the user. Bulk e-mail marketing sends announcements to a list of e-mail addresses that the company purchased. E-mail newsletter marketing is when an online business places an advertisement within that e-mail newsletter Opt-in e-mail marketing

This is an essential component of most e-Commerce businesses. Opt-in marketing keeps customers up to date on developments, updates them on specials and discounts, and introduces new products. The most difficult step to opt-in marketing is developing a quality e-mail list. Even with a ?good? list that was build ?in house? the results are low. A 10% open rate is considered good, with a .01% buy rate. That means for every 100 000 people receiving an email, 1000 will open the email, and 10 will buy.

Bulk e-mail marketing

This method helps the company reach a large number of potential customers. Unfortunately, most bulk e-mail marketers SPAM their list with junk mail, which will decrease the bottom line. There is a fine line between legitimate bulk e-mail campaigns and SPAM. Identifying that line, and staying on the correct side of it, will allow your business to achieve results.

These potential clients have never heard of your company, and may not be in the market for your product. This decreases the Return On Investment, but if the site it built to keep customers coming back, then it will give the business owner an opportunity to pre-sell new members.

Newsletter marketing

E-newsletter marketing is a favorite method of e-mail marketing but it is the most expensive per recipient. Return On Investment is higher because the recipients read the newsletter. The advertisement is seen by many of the recipients.

Planning the Campaign

There is more to the campaign than just writing adcopy and finding a list, and setting up a campaign. Success ? or failure ? can be the difference between emailing clients at 5pm on a Friday night and 9pm. The number of spam emails in the recipient's inbox can also effect the success rate.

For example, sending out a business opportunity newsletter in Feb, when people are trying to pay their Christmas bills, will generate more responses than sending it out in March when people are starting to think about outdoor activities. Only two weeks between the campaigns can make the difference between 10 and 1000 opened emails, and 0 ? 1000 purchases.