Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Every business large or small needs a list of leads or potential customers with some interest in your product or service. Large companies may attend trade shows, run ads in trade magazines or hold a big contest as ways to generate leads.

What effective and affordable strategy can a home based business do to generate leads? Easy! Learn how to grow your business using email marketing.

Why?

It’s effective and affordable. But only if you use it the right way.

Some small business owners may ask does email marketing still work? The answer is…it depends on how you work it.  I can tell you for sure what doesn’t work – the “spray and pray” method.  Which is blindly sending out emails to everyone in your address book, while secretly praying they will have interest is a commonly used method.

Another over used method that doesn’t work is lifting an email off a business card. I have been the victim of this many, many times. You meet someone at a networking event instead of building a relationship with them you add them to your email list. Are you making this really bad mistake with your networking?

Guess what!?

Doing this will not help the relationship or grow your business. In fact you may be reported as a spammer, your ISP (Comcast, Verizon, etc) may block your emails and your email by be breaking the law.

Here’s the secret, internet marketing gurus have and continue to make millions from email marketing, and you can too!  Well, as long as you think about how you’re going to use email to market your business and become skilled at:

Building an email list

To build a good quality list for starters you should have the right technology in place. You need a reputable email marketing service to manage all aspects of building your list. Your email marketing service should collect and manage subscribers, send email newsletters and automatically follow up messages called auto responders.

Offering your list value

To provide value you need to create an offer that peeks the interest of your target market and compels them to sign-up for your list (opt-in). Your emails should help build the relationship with your leads and customers.  Your emails should add value to your list without beating them over the head to buy your stuff.

Developing an email marketing plan

To develop an effective strategy your plan should outline your goals, determine your email frequency and create a timeline. Your strategy will layout how and when your email campaigns will communicate to an audience who is actually listening.

Measuring the effectiveness of your email campaign

Ideally your email marketing service will have in place some type of tracking tools. These tools should track who opened (and who didn’t) your messages, if a link was clicked, how many people unsubscribed and if your email generated revenue. With every email campaign you should monitor and measure your results.

Not sure how to use email marketing effectively to grow your business? Don’t know where to start? Let me help, reserve your complimentary 20 minute Business Breakthrough consultation, these spots fill up quickly ONLY 5 available each week.

Source: http://www.savvybizbuilder.com/2011/04/secrets-to-growing-your-business-using-email-marketing.html

-------------------------

Tonya R. Taylor at http://savvybizbuilder.com