As a smaller brand within the garment design industry, how can you compete against the bigger brand names without email marketing solutions? You don't have the kind of cash flow to purchase print media or Television advertisements to expand your client base. On top of that, you don't have the costly, sophisticated tools big companies use to keep their customers coming back. Email marketing solutions helps you hold on to your clients by promoting your brand and making your customers feel appreciated. Email marketing solutions only require a few minutes of your time. In that brief span you get professionally designed email advertising campaigns sent directly to your customers.

So here's where you begin: collect a list of emails. There are a number of ways to accomplish this, and one effective method is to get your customers to sign up by giving them a discount, like '5% off every order this month if you sign up for our email database.' A company that is satisfied with your service will be thrilled to receive the same merchandise at a lower cost, especially if it means that they will receive a 'preferred customer promotion' for doing so.

Congratulations! You now have your first contacts. The next step is to sign up for an email marketing solutions account. Signing up is easy, because most email marketing solutions are created with the idea of keeping things as simple as possible so that anyone can take advantage of them. Now, cycle through the professionally-designed templates and create your first campaign. Building your campaign is also an easy process. Email marketing solutions gives you user-friendly templates so that all you have to do is input your text (or you can copy and paste it, if you want), and add your images. Here are a few tricks to think about when using your email marketing solutions to create a campaign: Do not use too much bolding, italics, and capital lettering in the main body portion or the subject line of your email. Also, try not to put too many pictures of your products without also balancing those images with content to support the images. Symbols like exclamation points or dollar signs in your subject line should also be avoided as well. All these techniques, commonly used to attract attention, also end up attracting spam filters. If you overuse them, your email will not go into your subscribers' inbox, but rather into their spam or junk mail box.

When you are ready, click a button to schedule your email marketing campaign, and it will automatically go out to the people on your list at the date and time you selected.

Now that your email marketing solutions campaign is finished and has arrived in your buyersC inbox, you will be able to track which of your clients were interested in your marketing campaign. One of the great things about email marketing solutions is that it can track 'clicks', and 'opens.' This gives you a percentage breakdown and analysis of which of your customers are opening and clicking on the promotions you have in your email. Also, by adding a 'forward to friend' button, you will be able increase your mailing list, and have a greater chance to have more customers.

As a garments designer, using email marketing solutions will have a large impact on how many return customers you have, which will positively affect sales. Email marketing solutions can provide you with added business and potentially grow your client base over time. This is a cost effective way to keep on par with larger brand competitors and maximize your brand's potential. You might be small, but now you can plan for bigger things.