A quick guide.
Email marketing is a great way to market you and your company but it can be a complicated business.
We can help you set up an easy-to-use database system that will let you manage your contact lists as well as track who opened the email, who forwarded it, which messages got bounced, and supply you with powerful analytics.
Email Marketing 101:
A beginner's guide
Do you have permission?
Simply sending out a PDF as an attachment to your entire contact list is not a marketing strategy and you could get yourself into trouble for spamming. Spam is any email you send to someone who hasn’t given you their direct permission to contact them on the topic of the email. Below are just a few guidelines from industry leaders Campaign Monitor regarding good email marketing practice.
The type of permission you MUST have
You can only email people if you have their permission in any of the following ways:
- They opted in via your website. This could either be through a newsletter subscribe form or by ticking a checkbox;
- They completed an offline form and indicated they wanted to be emailed. If someone completes an offline form like a survey or enters a competition, you can only contact them if it was explained to them that they would be contacted by email AND they ticked a box indicating they would like to be contacted;
- They gave you their business card. If someone gives you their business card and you have explicitly asked for permission to add them to your list, you can contact them;
- They purchased something from you in the last 2 years. By making a purchase from you they have provided their permission implicitly.
Scenarios that DON’T equate to permission
Basically, anything outside the examples above doesn’t equal permission, but here are some examples to make sure:
- You obtained the email address from a third party;
- You purchased a list, were provided one by a partner or bought a bankrupt competitor’s customer list. Those people never gave YOU permission to email them and they will consider your email spam;
- You scraped or 'copy and pasted' the addresses from the Internet. Just because people publish their email address doesn’t mean they want to hear from you;
- You haven’t emailed that address for more than 2 years. Permission doesn’t age well. Even if you got their permission legitimately, they won’t remember giving it to you. If you haven’t sent something to that address in the last 2 years, you can’t start now.
If you need help with your email marketing campaigns, please get in touch and we'll be happy to help you.
