Part 1: Targeting | Part 2: Email Design | Part 3: Ensuring Delivery | Part 4: Tracking & Monitoring

Email Marketing allows you to promote what you're selling or providing flexibly. It's more cost effective than direct mail and less time consuming to implement. It doesn't end there either! Personalisation is even more advanced and tracking of results is considerably more accurate.

In order to he successful however, email marketing should be a carefully planned out campaign. If you don't take care to understand what the recipient wants, you can damage your organisation's reputation.

This guide gives a full run down on all aspects of email marketing. We'd like to think its fairly in-depth, so you may consider making yourself a snack for we get started!

Part 1: Targeting

Buying an email list

The first task for any email marketing campaign is to decide who you're targeting. Are you looking for new clients in a new industry sector, or are hoping to generate more sales from existing clients?

When it comes to buying an email list from an email list company, there are a few things you should check:

		Are emails Opt-In or Opt-Out? Email list companies who have Opt-In emails lists means that people have subscribed to receive emails. The term "Double Opt-In" is where they have had to confirm subscription, and is therefore gives the best response rate. Opt-out email marketing is different. It's where recipients are automatically added to a mailing list unless they have specifically requested not to be added. This will result in a bigger or cheaper email list, but the response rate will be significantly lower.

		How many times can you use the email lists? Generally, because they are rented, email lists will have a license showing how many times you can use it. If you plan to do more than one email in the campaign then it's important to check the number of times the email list can be used.

		How often are email lists updated? As a minimum, email list companies should regularly (daily) update their lists with any unsubscriptions. An established company will have a call centre to periodically contract subscribers to check their information is still up-to-date. This is important, the more up-to-date, the better the response rate.

		How much data do they provide? Many email lists will provide more than just email data. A name, address and a phone number may be included. The question is, do you need all of this information? Think carefully, as you may wish to follow up your email campaign using another method. Otherwise, if you don't need all of the data, this may help in negotiating the price.

		How much do they charge? Many email list companies are actually brokers and do not own the list themselves. As you would expect, you will have to pay for the privilege of them searching for the ideal email list for you. It could be cheaper to buy direct from an email list company, but then you will have to source someone to design and send the email, as well as manage unsubscriptions.

		Do they have sample lists? Most companies will have a sample list to give a demonstration of the quality of the email list. This is a good way of comparing different email lists from different suppliers (or brokers) before making a decision.

		What are their credentials? A good sign of an email marketing list company being legitimate is if they are a member of the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). Members have to meet standards and a code of conduct.

As with any other product or service, you should shop around. If you do proceed with an email list company, then see if they have any guaranteed response rates. Often you can arrange to use the email list again if the response is no where near what you've been told.

Some companies actually sell instead of rent email lists. It sounds great, but think, why would anyone agree to sell their email address? We'd recommend avoiding buying email lists, they'll probably be out of date and you'll be sending an email to already disgruntled recipients.

Building your own email list

There are other ways of obtaining email lists. You can join a membership body, Chamber of Commerce or sponsor an event to gain member contact details (as long as you are clearly allowed to). Although not as a targeted, these email lists are sometimes free. It is worth asking recipients if they are happy to continue receiving emails from you afterwards - encourage them to Opt-In.

You can start building your own email list by getting in touch with current clients and asking them if they wish to Opt-In. You can organise them by industry, purchase history or categories such as location if your services are geographically specific.

Creating good online content is a way of getting more subscribers. If they like what they see, the chances are they will want more. The trick is to make it very easy to sign-up, making sure they can do so immediately.

One strategy is to prevent visitors from viewing some particularly good content without signup beforehand. Most visitors only visit your website once, so this gives you an opportunity to contact them again. However, ensure your content is genuinely useful and unique. It doesn't take much for a visitor to go elsewhere. This is a technique worth testing before establishing it long term.

You can increase the chances of getting people to subscribe with incentives. Illustrate what benefits there are to signing up, you could even include special offers or unique features.

Don't ignore your offline marketing as a way of gaining more subscribers, you could include a tick box in your letter communications for people to sign up to your e-newsletter, or add one to a fax template. You could even ask your sales staff to ask callers if they wish to subscribe when finishing a phone conversation.

Segmenting your list

Once you have decided to use a new email list or your own list of subscribers, you should ensure the people on the list will be interested in what you are sending them. Ultimately, people tend to get annoyed if they receive an irrelevant email and they're likely to delete spam messages from your business without reading them. "Quality over quantity" is a phrase suited to email marketing.

When purchasing a new email list, because its Opt-In, the recipients will be grouped by industry or target group (such as the 'construction industry' or 'students'). If you're using your own data, ideally you would go into even more detail when it comes to sorting individuals. This way, an email can be produced to be targeted specifically at them.

Move on to 'Email Design'