The dos and don'ts of email marketing
Do you send out email blasts? I do. Oh, I know there are marketing gurus out there who will fillet me for utilizing the term “blast” connoting a lack of forethought or attention to the task.
Well-crafted email marketing messages are anything but lacking in forethought and attention. I spend so much time triple-milliontuple checking and testing my fetchingly hyperlinked emails, I expect my blasts to come out looking as important as the Magna Carta — all life-changing and historic.
As any of you can attest who just finished plowing through the 110 emails that came in between 5 p.m. yesterday and 8 this morning, email is THE business mode of communication. Take advantage of this marketing boon and fast walk down this paved-with-opportunity path to communicating with your clients.
For less than it costs to purchase a month’s worth of lattes you can get up and running on email blasts in an afternoon. There are at least a dozen providers out there, including MailChimp, Constant Contact, Mad Mimi (presumably not a screaming one), emailbrain (which sounds more like a condition than a service), and EmuEmailMarketing. OK, the last one isn’t a real one. You got me.
The names don’t matter so much as the service itself. You’re looking for the three e’s: Efficiency, Ease and Extremely cheap. I’m not endorsing any particular company.
Like so many commitments, there is one catch: Don’t begin an email marketing campaign if you can’t sustain it. This brings us to whom you choose to sit at the helm of the S.S. Email Marketing. (No, it should not be your nephew who is home summers, Christmas vacations and most weekends.) You need a professional, someone who will cull out the nonexistent addresses, ensure that your branding stays consistent and analyze the results of your efforts through program analytics.
