Typically, most business owners realize that e-mail marketing is a key to growth, but they procrastinate because they use Outlook, ACT, or – even worse -- a fax machine to broadcast messages. Well, if you ever tried uncorking a wine bottle with a screwdriver, then you know what it's like trying to run an e-mail campaign without the right tool.
Here are five reasons to avoid e-mail marketing:
1) If you ever try to send more than a few hundred e-mails using Outlook, you'd better plan to give up some quality time on your yoga mat, because you'll have to split your customer base into several groups and send the message in batches.
"OM": A single click will send thousands of e-mails in less than 10 seconds.
2) After you launch an e-mail campaign, the fun really starts. Some prospects may not share your enthusiasm for your latest offer and will want to be removed from your list. They'll typically reply back and you'll have to manually delete them.
"OM": Subscribers can “unsubscribe” or update their accounts with a click.
3) Most likely, 10-15% of your list will bounce back for various reasons and clog up your inbox. Again, you'll have to manually determine why the messages bounced back (i.e., wrong address, client died, mailbox was full, etc.) and take the appropriate manual action(s).
"OM": All bounce-backs are removed from the list automatically or re-sent depending on the cause. Hey, we've got "bounce management."
4) Heck, how do you effectively collect and organize those e-mails in the first place, so you can target clients with specific information and personalize each e-mail?
"OM": Import existing lists from Outlook or ACT with just a click. Segment customer information based on interests, demographics, or customized questions.
5) Ever wonder what actually happened to that last blast of e-mails you sent advertising four of your most amazing ideas? Did anyone ever get these e-mails? Or bother to open them? If so, which of the four ideas did they think was the most amazing? And were any customers so overwhelmed that they simply had to forward your e-mail to a friend?
"OM": Our tracking features can almost track your cat. Get this … you can track who got your e-mail, who opened each message, which links users clicked on in your newsletter, who is forwarding your newsletter, and who is signing up as a result of that forwarding.
If you have the right tool, e-mail marketing is an amazing way to build and manage customer relationships. Check out the "OM" tool belt and see what we mean:
Build And Manage Your Lists
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Import existing e-mail lists
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Create a list sign-up form
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Segment customers by demographics
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Automatically subscribe/unsubscribe
- Confirm opt-in subscribers
Create Campaigns
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Deliver HTML, text e-mail, or multipart
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New: upload and store your images
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New: edit HTML with online tool
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New: test response with focus group feature
Send And Track
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Send thousands of emails at once
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Target e-mails based on demographics
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Personalize each e-mail
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Send preview e-mail to yourself
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Schedule date and time to send
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Track and flag invalid e-mail addresses
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Live click tracking reports (including who clicked on each link and when)
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Forward-to-a-friend tracking
- View detailed reports online
