What marketing strategies do you use to promote your business? If you have not tried email marketing as an option, then this article is definitely for you – to help you understand what E-marketing is about and also to get a list of resources to get going on it.

The Good

One of the major pros of email marketing is that is cheap and effective (cheaper than direct mailing and effective in reducing the time to reach out to thousands in a matter of minutes). There are various email marketing tools and services which you can setup within a matter of hours and get going on your marketing plan – of course the list has to be your effort (or someone else’s if you are willing to pay for it).

The best part about email marketing is that you can reach out to your potential clients anywhere anytime. Your next customer could be the one at Singapore airport who had some time at hand before boarding the next flight, checked his email, saw your recent offer and happily clicked on the secure buy webpage to get your latest offer. Or it would be that person in Bergen, Norway who loved your latest template that you have recently promoted through your newsletter and is downloading it right now and it could be the middle of the night for you. Web marketing is effective in reaching out to thousands and millions in a matter of minutes and has a global coverage for a little cost involved.

Through the email newsletters you can promote your business by:

• Sending out discounts and coupons for your products or services
• Keeping your present customers informed about the latest releases of your products or information on upcoming ones
• Sending out surveys that help improve your products or services or to gauge customer interest in new areas
• And of course you can earn more income by promoting other’s businesses and products – known as affiliate marketing

The Bad

A major drawback of email marketing and especially if you are buying email lists to advertise your business is you could find yourself in the spammers list. And there goes a lot of credibility. Always give the users a chance to opt out of your email newsletters and listings, without a catch – always.

Another drawback of email marketing could be that you are not reaching out to the customers as effectively, either they are deleting your newsletters or not finding them informative enough or you have bombarded them with too much information too often and they are not interested anymore. However this “bad” factor is up to your marketing skills entirely. Always survey what the customers want and limit your emails to certain times of a week only.

Also when promoting affiliate products just don’t go overboard with promoting whatever comes your way or whoever pays you more, if there are people on your list they are there because they trust you, never betray their trust. The more honest you are with your customers the more money they will bring to you.

Strong ethics and credibility are essential to a sustainable business.

Where to get it?

If you are good at HTML programming and content management (and of course you have the time to create content, manage lists and post on regular intervals), then email marketing could be one of the cheapest advertising and marketing tool. If not then there are some pretty good options available at present which offer great value and support throughout the setup and after, you may want to check a few of these and decide which option works out the best for you. Here is a list of the bigwigs of email marketing:

Topica
Website: http://www.topica.com
Free: Yes, 14 days
Cost: 0-5,000 Monthly cost $49.95 ((more pricing info on website also the pricing may be updated on the website, the one quoted here is not the final price) Trial

iContact
Website: http://www.icontact.com
Free Trial: Yes, 15 days
Cost: up to 250 – $9.95, up to 5000 – $47.00 (more pricing info on website also the pricing may be updated on the website, the one quoted here is not the final price)

Constant Contact
Website: http://www.constantcontact.com
Free Trial: Yes, 60 days
Cost: 0-500 – $15.00, 2,501-5000 - $50.00 (more pricing info on website also the pricing may be updated on the website, the one quoted here is not the final price, also always check of there is a contract or extra initial fees)

Vertical Response
Website: http://www.verticalresponse.com
Free Trial: Yes, 30 days
Cost: 0-500 – $10.00, 2001-4000 – $46.00 (more pricing info on website also the pricing may be updated on the website, the one quoted here is not the final price, also note there might be some contract or extra initial fees)

AWeber
Website: http://www.aweber.com
Free Trial: First month for $1.00
Cost: 0-500 – $19.00, 2,501-5,000 – $49.00 (more pricing info on website also the pricing may be updated on the website, the one quoted here is not the final price, also note there might be some contract or extra initial fees)

MyEmma
Website: http://myemma.com
Free Trial: hmm, did not see at this time, but there could be …
Cost: http://myemma.com/pricing.php check the website for details

GroupMail
Website: http://www.group-mail.com/asp/common/default.asp
Cost: They have custom plans for different user groups, see http://www.group-mail.com/asp/common/purchase.asp

The options do not end here, if you can manage the emails listing and content management yourself you can do all entirely for free or a bare minimum cost, check out these software and see if you can play around with them to come up with a personalized email newsletter for your client base:

PHPLIST
Website: http://www.phplist.com
phplist is an open-source newsletter manager. phplist is free to download, install and use, and is easy to integrate with any website.

MailChimp
Website: http://www.mailchimp.com
Free for up to 500 subscribers, you can send up to 3,000 emails per month.