Internet Marketing: The Central Component

When you hear the term “internet marketing“, what do you think of?

For many, that term conjures thoughts of websites or spamming or search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. For others, it’s all about graphical design, writing fancy code or even affiliate programs. All of those answers correct, but the essence of internet marketing is much simpler.

At its core, internet marketing is about these things:

* Understanding the target market to which the product/service/cause you’re marketing will appeal
* Determining exactly how your target market interacts with the internet
* Positioning your content on the internet to attract the attention of your target market
* Collecting information about your target market (also known as “leads”) for follow-up and conversion into sales
* Design of offers or incentives to induce the desired actions from your leads

Since there is insufficient space in this article to give all of these topics adequate attention, let’s focus on just one specific topic with the realm of internet marketing: Email Marketing.

My best payoff has always come by focusing on permission-based email marketing. Permission-based email marketing refers to the practice of collecting information (including email addresses) from website visitors and communicating with them via e-mail with their direct consent. The “permission” aspect of permission-based email marketing is what separates legitimate email marketers from the spammers that everyone despises.

My love of email marketing is strong for one reason: It works very well. Email marketing has been much like a never-ending goldmine: It enables us to produce income on demand simply by sending a good offer to our list. When you have thousands of loyal subscribers – as we do – and you put a strong and compatible offer in front of them, income becomes nearly automatic.

However, the key to successful email marketing is the development of a legitimate trust relationship with your subscribers. If you opt to send your subscribers a request for purchases every single day, they will likely tire of your badgering and cease reading your emails altogether.

Alternatively, if you take the time to provide good content to your readers on a regular and frequent basis, you’ll discover that your readers take all of your emails far more seriously, and as a result your emails will be opened, read and acted upon with greater frequency. Essentially, email marketing is really an exercise in trust.

Even though there are more sides to internet marketing than just email marketing (permission based), email has been the foundation that our business sits on.

Best Marketing Practices in E-mail Marketing by - Kelly Flint

Building relationships with your customers is key to growing your business, especially in a down economy. Now more than ever, it’s vitally important to market to and communicate with your customers in order to stay top of mind.

Getting started with email marketing isn’t difficult, but there are some important elements you should address before you start.

Get Permission
One of the most critical elements of email marketing is a clean, permission-based list of email addresses. Permission is vital to the success of your email marketing efforts. Sending email to people who have not explicitly given you permission to do so is considered “spam.” It will result in spam complaints and unsubscribe requests. As a legitimate email marketer you have a responsibility to send spam-free email to your email list. But don’t let this challenge stop you from trying email marketing. Staying clear of a spam label isn’t that difficult to manage if you follow some simple guidelines:

• Use a recognizable "from" name
• Use a clear subject line
• Make your email relevant
• Maintain a clean email list
• Avoid spam-like words and symbols

If you follow these suggestions, your emails will evade the dreaded spam button, resulting in higher deliverability and open rates.

Choose your Method
Once you have a clean, permission-based list, determine how you’ll conduct your email marketing efforts. While you could try to handle it yourself using your own email application, most experts agree it’s better to go with an email marketing service provider. Email marketing services handle all of the hard work, allowing you to focus on promoting your services. Good email marketing services deliver your emails with proper protocols and develop relationships with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to be sure your email is delivered to all the inboxes on your list. In addition, these providers offer numerous tools to make your email campaigns as successful as possible, such as professionally-designed templates, list management, tracking and reporting, and much more.

Make a Plan
When you begin drafting the content for your email newsletter, it is important to think about the goals you want to accomplish, your audience, and your message. Spend some time determining which type of email you want to send and craft the message to fit your target audience and goals. Another important consideration is frequency; this is a tricky subject because every business and organization is different. Think about your recipients and how much they might want to hear from you about your programs or services. After that, let your click-throughs, unsubscribe rates and customer feedback be your guide.

Choose Your Content
Once you’ve established your plan and identified your audience and message, it’s time to create your email campaign. As mentioned above, most email service providers make it easy to develop an email with pre-designed templates and email wizards.

Email newsletters are uniquely suited to accomplish the long-term goals of customer retention and loyalty. By providing interesting, relevant information about your products and services, and other related topics, you’re educating and informing your customers. Your customers know you provide a good service, but they’ll be surprised and pleased to learn you are also willing to offer advice, interesting insight and valuable resources in your regular newsletter. Then, when they need a service that your provide, they’re more likely to turn to you because you’ve established a trusted relationship with them.

A newsletter is just one way to use email marketing. You can also send promotions, announcements, invitations and any number of other communications to your email list. Promotions tend to be popular choices for many organizations looking to achieve short-term goals such as signing up for classes or for an activity. It is also important to segment your list and only send promotions to those subscribers who will be interested.

Get Started
Remember the ultimate goal of any marketing program is to build your brand and reputation and ensure your customers think of you when they’re ready to take action. Email marketing is an easy, inexpensive and effective marketing method. The specific rules and guidelines all email marketers should follow are designed to help you accomplish your goals. With a permission-based email list, targeted, relevant emails, and interesting content -- your email marketing efforts will generate more and better leads and improved customer satisfaction.