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Simplify and automate lead generation with email marketing

Every business needs new customers to ensure profitability and growth.

Traditionally, mail outs and advertising have been how most entrepreneurs have created interest (generated leads) to get people to ring them or come through the door.

Now with the Internet, you can be asleep in bed whilst your website sells for you. And if you take the next step and use email to advertise, you can automate your lead generation so that it happens even when you’re on holiday.

From your everyday business use, you’ll know what an excellent delivery method email is for contacting other people quickly. Within seconds a message you send can be delivered to someone half way around the world.

Chances are high that the average email message you send will only go to a handful of people and occasionally there’ll be a special message that needs to be sent to more than 20 people.

To send advertising messages to your entire customer database using email needs software that will let you send to hundreds or thousands of people, all at the same time. Something that your regular email software and Internet Service Provider (ISP) aren’t able to do^#1.

Websites that specialize in providing software and Internet Service Provider (ISP) services specifically for email marketing (Email Marketing Service Providers) have flourished in recent years, giving entrepreneurs new options for advertising. With each year, the features provided by these websites have become more useful and made the process of sending advertising email messages easier and easier.

Today it is common for Email Marketing Service Providers (EMSPs) to provide automated subscription management, link and email message tracking, timed send scheduling and step-by-step tutorials to help people new to email marketing. All usually pulled together within a few web pages with forms you fill in to get a professional result.

The typical process for setting up an account with an EMSP is to sign-up for a free trial account (you ‘upgrade’ your account with a credit card payment when you’re ready to begin sending messages), you then upload images (such as your business logo) into a special folder usually called the ‘Media’ or ‘Image’ library. Next you modify the template Opt-in and Welcome messages provided by the EMSP, then create a form you can put on your website for collecting subscriber information automatically and finally you upload your customer database so that you have a list of email addresses to send messages to.

Once you’ve done all of this, your account is set and ready for use. Now you can begin creating your advertising messages and scheduling them as far into the future as you like. The great thing about scheduling is you can set and forget.

And if lead generation doesn’t interest you?

You can use your EMSP account to promote offers and sales, up-sell and cross-sell, run referral campaigns, and niche sell. Simply by changing the strategy you use.

Or take advantage of the automated subscription management and reporting your account has, to collect customer details really easily for things like pre-orders, event registrations and petitions.

Here are just a few examples of how businesses in different industries are using email marketing.

• Beauty therapists are using email marketing to send messages to their customers with discounted appointments to make sure their spa rooms are busy all day.
• Software developers are using email marketing to keep magazine editors and venture capital investors up to date with their latest news maximize their opportunities for promotion and more funding.
• Restaurants and cafes are using email marketing to send out their daily lunchtime specials and promote their catering menu to encourage people to buy their meals from them and not next door.
• Home entertainment retailers are using email marketing to announce and promote pre-orders on new equipment to increase sales and minimize overstocking or short ordering.
• Jewellery wholesalers are using email marketing to get their catalogue into the hands of their customers more often and sooner for more frequent orders.
• Industry Associations are using email marketing to increase perceived member value by communicating with their members more often whilst spending less to do so.

Email marketing is simply one of the easiest and most profitable way of keeping touch with customer and business partners; think again. Talk to Solutions Answers Results now - +61 3 9016 3140.

^#1 The introduction of Anti-Spam laws around the world have prompted Internet Service Providers (ISP) to implement email sending limits that effect the number of emails you can send at any one time. Some have even put in time penalties so that you need to wait several hours between sending large amounts of email. Check your ISP terms of service to find out the restrictions that apply to you. Producers of email software are also helping to fight the proliferation of Spam by limiting the number of email addresses you can add to a message before you send it.