Permission Based Email Marketing -The Strategy That Works!
This is fast becoming the most acceptable form of email based marketing. It is an excellent way to expand upon your current base of customers and provides a cost-effective method of communicating with existing clients, partners, and associates. It also allows companies to communicate with people who have explicitly opted in to receive information on specific topics.
Businesses are increasingly using permission based email marketing as their preferred method for building customer relationships while keeping their reputation intact. While everyone with a website should use email newsletters and promotions to bring their subscribers back to their site, businesses that are not online, can also benefit from email marketing. Businesses without websites can easily send newsletters, promotions, announcements and invitations by email and generate an email reply, a telephone call, an appointment or a personal visit.
A permission based email list is that list which is a collection of those email ids who have willingly registered into your email marketing campaign and have given you their consent to mail your marketing stuffs into their email account. It is always beneficial to mail through opt-in email lists as the response is much more profitable in these lists.
Permission based email marketing is not spam, because you will only send emails to those customers and prospects that give you permission to send communications to. Sending spam can ruin your organization’s reputation and brand value regardless of your company’s size, scope, or current image. Compared to spamming, permission-based email marketing is more effective, less intrusive and is received by prospects easier. People can opt-in through a form on your web page, in personal meetings where they add their name, email address and check a “consent” box, or over the phone when it’s possible to record proof of the conversation. There are two forms of opt-in mailings, single opt-in and double opt-in.
A single opt-in list is created by inviting members to join via a web form; once they submit the form, they’re signed up for the list. A double opt-in requires two explicit actions on the part of the recipient granting permission: First, the recipient must formally opt in by filling in a web form with their name and email address. Next, the recipient will receive a subsequent email confirming if you want to receive further information clicking a link thus confirming that they want to receive your communications. It’s the most stringent form of opt-in but ensures that your recipients are who they say they are, and really want to sign up for your communications.
Every permission based email marketing campaign should allow the subscriber (i.e. the person who has give you permission to contact them via email) to “opt-out” of your email list. That is, always provide the subscriber the option of ending the relationship.
If you want to be an Internet marketer with an effective opt-in listing, you must treat your leads like human being-complete with emotion, calling them by their first name (you can actually automate that!), and making them know that beyond marketing, you genuinely care about them. This is not something you do to flatter. It will not pan out properly if you are not as sincere in creating a personal touch to your business.
The theory of reciprocity is often attributed to Dr. Robert. B. Cialdini. Through numerous experiments and by observing human behavior, Cialdini noticed that when something generous was done for a person, that person often felt motivated to reciprocate the goodwill. This tendency of human behavior is directly applicable to your permission based email marketing campaigns.
Filed under: Internet Business