Do's and Don'ts of Email Marketing

By Ian Cheow, October 07 2009

Email is the most common form of communication today. I believe almost everyone has at least one email address and sends at least 1 email a day. Because email is so popular, many businesses are using email to market their products or services. But do you know that a bad email marketing campaign can hurt your business? In this article, I am going to share with you some do's and don'ts of email marketing.

Email marketing is the activity to promote a company's products or services via emails to a list of prospects and loyal customers. Although it is a very common practice, there are many pitfalls you must avoid. Here are a few things that you should take note:

1. Don't spam. Spam is a big NO when it comes to email marketing. Did you ever receive an unsolicited email before? I believe you sent it straight to the trash box. So never send unsolicited messages if you want to get results from email marketing. Many companies love to buy unsolicited email addresses and blast out emails. This is not a good practice. A better practice is to build your own email list. When it comes to email marketing, quantity is not everything. It is the quality of your email list that counts.

2. Don't be a pushy salesperson. Yes, you should try to sell in your emails but should not be too pushy. Thus, avoid hyping up your products or services in your emails. Instead, provide useful information about your products or services and encourage your recipients to find out more on your website.

3. Frequency of email updates. One email a day is excessive unless your recipients expect it. On the other hand, one email a month is too little. A general guideline will be to send out an email once a week or once every 2 weeks.

4. Provide an unsubscribe option in your email. If your recipients do not like the email content, allow them to unsubscribe from your email marketing service. The fact that they can opt out of your email marketing service is a good foundation for trust. When you have a list of subscribers who trust you, you can get better results from your email marketing campaign. With more trust, it ultimately translates into more sales and profits later on.

Hope you find these 4 tips useful. Bear these in mind before you send out your next email marketing campaign.