If you’ve logged into an email account in the past 15 years, you’ve almost definitely encountered some form of email marketing during your daily inbox routine. Regardless of if it’s used properly (opt-in) or not (oh no, spam!), one fact is clear: Email marketing is a very powerful tool for a wide variety of reasons that businesses can take advantage of with very low overhead costs. However, maximizing its potential requires you to use it as effectively as possible. Want to learn more? Here are a few pointers to get your feet wet. (Don’t have the time? Hire an expert on 3E Solutions to get the job done.)

What Is Email Marketing?

According to Wikipedia, email marketing is “a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience.” So basically, if you’re a business and you’re contacting your current or potential future customers with sweet offers, then you’re using email marketing. Additionally, from the same source, researchers estimate that U.S. firms alone spent $400 million on email marketing in 2006.

Opt-In Vs. Opt-Out

If you’re unfamiliar with Opt-In or Opt-Out email marketing, think of it like this: Opt-In are your customers who specifically asked to receive email updates and newsletters from you, while Opt-Out is that you assume your customers, or anyone for that matter, wants to hear from you unless they specifically state that they do not want to hear from you. Of course, it gets far more technical (read the full descriptions here at Spamhaus.org), but before you choose one, be sure to understand all of the potential ramifications prior to making a decision.

Personalization

“Dear Alex, check out our newest sales offer!” If you’re sitting there thinking that someone is on the other end typing each individual email in Outlook and clicking send, think again. There are quite a few email marketing solutions online that offer a wide variety of features, like email personalization. And don’t think that personalization is limited to just a name – you can personalize each email with custom links, login and user information, subject lines, headlines, and more. Does it make a difference? Well, a Jupiter Research study in 2006 states that inserting a person’s name into an email increases open rates by as much as 10%.

Managing Your Email Lists

So, how do they get your name and all of that personalization in there? In reality, the information needed to customize all of these emails is placed in simple spreadsheets. These datasheets are the who, what, and where of your entire email marketing campaign. It’s important for you to pay close attention to these lists because if these lists get filled with bad email addresses, it could negatively affect your email deliverability rate. Email hosts pay close attention to who’s sending what to who, so if you’re getting a high bounce rate (due to invalid or outdated email addresses), you could end up getting blacklisted and end up in the junk box rather quickly.