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What NOT to Do When Marketing With Email

Written by: Shel Horowitz

Article Overview: E-mail is one of the most powerful marketing inventions ever created, but also one of the most misused.

What NOT to Do When Marketing With Email

E-mail is one of the most powerful marketing inventions ever created, but also one of the most misused.

Use it wisely and your business will prosper; use it the wrong way, and kiss your business goodbye!

We'll do the "thou shalt nots" this month, and then in the following three months, we'll look at ways to do it right.

Here's the golden rule of e-mail marketing: NEVER EVER SPAM.

Spam, as you probably know, is sending unwanted junk bulk e-mail. First of all, it just doesn't work. You don't shortcut to riches by buying a list of thousands, or even millions, of people who don't want to hear from you.

Smart people filter out the spam and never see it anyway. Vengeful people will shut down your account and leave you without e-mail.

Response rates are abysmal, and the negative impact on your business image can be very high--you might even find yourself on some blacklist websites urging people not to do business with you.

What else shouldn't you do? In most cases, avoid paying to participate in opt-in lists, even if you're sure they really opted in. They're just not targeted enough!

I'd make an exception if you can match your offer very closely to the audience. But for some reason, unlike the postal direct mail industry, email list brokers haven't figured out that the best lists are very specifically targeted. If you're mailing postally, you may be able to buy a list of people who've bought multiple cruises to the Caribbean--but e-mail lists might segment only as far as visitors to a travel website--and you don't know if they're doing backpacks and hostels or $500 per night hotels.

Add to that the number of people who set up new email accounts just to get the freebies offered to join the opt-in list, and it's not surprising that results tend to be disappointing.

Similarly, I wouldn't recommend a generic ad campaign on the big listhost sites (Topica and Yahoogroups) unless they can guarantee you accurate and careful targeting.

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Article Tags: ad campaign, business image, cruises to the caribbean, direct mail, e mail marketing, email list, golden rule, hostels, inventions, list brokers, mail industry, mail lists, negative impact, new email, nots, response rates, topica, travel website, unwanted junk, yahoogroups



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