E-mail Marketing and SEO

One form of direct mail marketing is with e-mail in the form of product updates and newsletters.  One of the benefits of email marketing over direct mail marketing is the cost. It is also a very immediate way to target potential customers or clients. However there are some things to be aware of.

There is a fine line between spam and a way of keeping your visitors informed about your latest products or what is happening with the site. As such you should only send emails with promotional or marketing content to those that have signed up and given their permission.

Most email marketing is sent to subscribers, who have signed up for by adding their email address to a specific form or indirectly given their consent by hastily filling in a registration form and forgetting to un-check the box that says I agree to subscribe to the such-and-such newsletter which in most cases is ticked by default.

Where users have signed up for email marketing it should also be made easy to un-subscribe and have their details removed from your mailing list. Anything else is just spam. In fact email mail marketing has such a bad press that it is now often called ‘permission email marketing’ to emphasise the opt-in nature. What other tips are there for successful email marketing?

• Personalise your email rather than writing a standard letter for a higher read rate.
• Keep it is short and to the point.
• Provide a plain text version of the email as well as an html version
• Link to individual product pages or your website within the email.
• Offer subscribers  special deals or discounts for subscribing.
• Always put an a way for reader to unsubscribe.
• Send emails on the same day every week or month.

A good example of e-mail marketing is the Web  Pro News. This contains a lot of advertising but it also contains some nuggets of information that is actually sometimes useful. Where users can benefit from information.