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Permission Email Marketing will help build customer loyalty
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Permission Email Marketing

Experienced sales professionals say there is one key factor that distinguishes good marketers from others and that is to have persistent and consistent follow-up.

The most efficient and cost-effective way of doing this is through permission email marketing.

The ability to follow up with your customers and send them emails on a regular basis is critical for building a relationship with them. But you must also have their permission; otherwise your email marketing efforts will be regarded as spam.

So how can you know who visits your website and how can you follow up with them? There are two small pieces of information you need to collect from your visitors for successful permission email marketing: first name and email address.

There are different ways to do this. You can give away something of high perceived value from your website, like a free report or a free sample, or you can sell something at a low entry level price, in exchange for a name and email address.

Another method is to run a competition in which you offer a sought-after product as a prize. You could provide entry forms on your website, in your local newspaper and from your business premises. People entering the competition are asked to provide a name and email address.

Customers Must Give Consent

Once you’ve developed your customer list, you must get their consent to receive your email newsletters. Make it clear they will be receiving valuable information about new products, the “specials” you run, plus informative tips and advice on your products.

Then, after you have a list of those who’ve “opted in”, you can legitimately start your permission email marketing.

One of the keys to sending follow-ups to your customers is an “autoresponder” program. You can buy these programs or subscribe to a service.

Using an autoresponder, you can create a series of personalized emails that can be sent to your customer list automatically.

For example, if you sell weight loss supplements, with an autoresponder tool you can automatically send an email to your customers 30 days after they bought from you in order to remind them to order refills.

You can, in addition, build trust by sending them informative articles on how to effectively lose weight. If they trust you, they will be more willing to do regular business with you.

Autoresponders are also great for permission email marketing where you target special days or events – Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Super Bowl, Halloween – that you can tie in with your products or service.

Research shows that once a customer has already bought from you, he or she will be more willing to buy from you again than would a totally new customer. So retaining your existing customers is essential and permission email marketing is the best way of building the trust and credibility that will ensure this.

Next ... Direct Email Marketing

 

 Last updated: August 2008. Copyright © 2006-2008 Scotch Macaskill, 18 Strawberry Fields, 36 College Road, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. Tel: +27 33 3422811. Privacy: Your privacy is guaranteed. Personal information, including email addresses, will never be sold or given to third parties. See our Privacy Policy for further details.