Email Marketing For Your Home Based Business

Email marketing works! A recent survey has shown that Permission based Email Marketing yield a response rate of 10% to 15% as compared to direct mail, whose response rate is below 5%. Besides the cost of email marketing is less than 1/10th of the direct mailing costs. Following are some tips and guidelines on how to make email marketing work for your Home Based Business!

1. Get permission from your business contacts
- Offer something of value to your potential clientele like weekly fitness tips, etc.
- Allow easy double opt-in and opt-out facilities
- Send emails always from the same address
- Be wary of list brokers because the contacts in the list are often obtained by illicit means
- 80% of users said that they prefer to check the box to opt in as opposed to uncheck the opt-in box that you already have checked
- Only ask your clients once - after that dispose of the email address and don't solicit them again

2. Plan for a long & fruitful association with your business contacts
- Earn trust of your potential clients
- Always uphold the promises given to your clients
- Offer value for money to your business contacts
- Take care to communicate the right information to the right customer at the right time & develop personal relationships with your business contacts

3. Use your web site to expand your business contacts database
- Make the subscription to newsletters easy. Give your clients an option to subscribe to newsletter through your website
- Tell your targeted clients what they are subscribing for and give them value for their money, e.g. "Online sales exclusively for Internet customers"
- A subscriber preference page is effective way to receive customized information on your business contacts.
- Determine before hand what kind of information need to be collected; demographics, personal preferences, name etc.

4. Use partnerships and third party lists only ethically
- Use genuine third party opt-in lists
- Make use of Co-marketing options for your business

5. Use advocacy marketing to leverage your existing customers to gain new ones
- Word of mouth is proved to be the most effective marketing strategy
- Structure your email news letter in such a way that the customer sends your offer to a friend, not to the company
- Don't encourage your customers to send the offer to more than ten friends to your business contacts database

6. Utilize your internal resources to build business contact database
- Advertise on brochures and catalogues.
- Use email signature files and press releases.

7. Take care of details
- Personalize your messages
- Respond quickly
- Confirmations are a great way to solidify your relation with the potential customers
- Consider every instance that you come in contact with your business contact as a sign-up opportunity