Online Marketing Resource

Email Marketing, What you shouldn’t do?

As per industry report 72% of the companies use email Marketing and only 12% of companies using effective way to roll email campaign and get best ROI of 4%. Every marketer worth their salt has incorporated email marketing into their plans. Some do it very well -- others need a refresher. The rules keep changing. It used to be that building the biggest list possible and blasting it out weekly was the effective way to go. No more. Now, the name of the game is targeted response and basically becoming a mind reader and hitting the recipients at just the right time.

In this article by Morgan Stewart, he outlines five ways to sabotage your email list building efforts as follows:

1. Building a list before building a worthwhile program.
Your product or service has to be good. Period. No amount of marketing is going to make up for that. Build your foundation before putting the siding on the house.

2. Thinking subscribers are "out there."
"Your best prospective subscribers are already interacting with your company in one way or another," Stewart says. Don't take them for granted or forget about them. "Invest in implementing organic tactics before you invest money in hunting tactics."

3. Invading inboxes. 
No one likes uninvited visitors, which is what spam is. Email append only makes sense if subscribers opt in. At the end of the day, you want responders, not dead weight.

4. Not diversifying list growth efforts. 
Stewart points out that "You want to present your value proposition to consumers at as many points possible -- not only to people who are already interacting with your brand, but ideally to their friends as well." Using Social Media is one way to do this. Stewart advises that you can encourage subscribers to become fans on Facebook, to get exposure to a broader audience. Place an offer on that fan page requiring people to provide an email address so you can send them the offer, and you have a new list growth tool.

5. Setting it and forgetting it. 
With apologies to Ron Popeil, this tactic does not work in the world of email marketing. You must cultivate your list regularly. Analyze where you got certain names and measure if they are indeed your target audience. As you look at the quality of the names collected through each source, this level of detail will allow you to go back and address issues, make improvements, or terminate ineffective programs.