What is Email Marketing?

Email Marketing is a fairly recent trend in business communication – and it’s certainly a tried and tested way to help boost sales for your business.  But what does it mean exactly, how does it work, and would it be appropriate for your type of business? 

How and Why Does Email Marketing Work?

The basic premise behind email marketing is simple:  by sending your customers or prospects a regular communication (in other words, a newsletter) by email, you’re keeping yourself and your business fresh in their minds.  So the next time they need your particular product or service, they’ll think of you first – before your competitors. 

Let’s take a couple of examples.  Let’s say you run a business offering general gardening services.  Every month you might send your customers a short newsletter offering a few tips on keeping their garden looking good.  If it’s autumn, you could remind them it’s a good time to consider tackling any re-turfing if their grass is looking patchy.  If it’s spring you could remind them to start planting in preparation for the summer. 

This regular communication serves to help position yourself as an expert in your field, and because you are providing useful information (rather than a sales pitch), the recipients are likely to look forward to receiving the newsletter. But most importantly, this regular communication might just prompt them to contact you to do this work for them.

What if you were selling children’s clothes from your website?  As autumn sets in, you could mention the jumpers and fleeces you’re selling.  In summer, you can talk about the swimsuits and beach robes.  A colourful, info-packed newsletter arriving in your customer’s emailbox at the right time can prompt them to visit your site straightaway and buy something almost on impulse. 

One last point:  before you send any kind of email communication, you should always have the permission of the recipient first, otherwise your message could be classed as ‘Spam’.  With the Immediasite system, your site visitors can ‘opt in’ (or ‘subscribe’) to your newsletter.  This gives you permission to add their details to your database and start sending them information – they can easily unsubscribe if they want to.