Why Is EDM (Electronic Direct Mail) Important For My Business?
EDM is one of the most inexpensive and effective marketing tools available for online marketing. EDM encourages past customers to become loyal customers. Loyal customers are more likely to encourage their friends and family to buy from you or use your services.
More customers on your EDM list are likely to return to your site when reminded to do so for special offers or new services and products.
Some Important Things To Remember...
You must get a previous customer’s approval to email them to avoid being labeled as Spam email (e.g. sending unsolicited emails to people who have never heard from you).
You should only use EDM on your existing customer base. This means that for a start-up company, your email list will be very small or non-existent. Resist the urge to buy email lists from outside sources, this only cheapens your business and makes people who don’t want your services angry.
Is EDM Right For My Business?
If you have been using personalization methods on your Website, you most likely have a collection of email addresses from your customers that can be sent email reminding them of you and your services/products.
Do you have a very limited amount of money to spend on marketing? EDM is a great choice for you.
How to start
-
Have a list of email addresses with approval to send email
-
Knowledge of purchase history and/or profile of customer (ideally from the customer himself)
-
Decide how you are going to target these customers – send only relevant information
-
Do not annoy or unload overstock on your loyal customers through EDM
-
Do not send ads for items already purchased by the customer
-
Attach a “cookie” to your email in order to track the effectiveness (tracks how many customers return to your site and buy again using this email)
Procedure For Formatting The Email
-
Lead/Header: an interesting attention grabber
-
Benefit Statement: what the customer gets when they respond
-
Deal: the offer you want to make
-
Credibility Statement: why you are qualified to do the task you are writing about
-
Call to Action: ask for only one action per email
-
Make your content “forward” worthy so customer will send to friends who could use the information and in turn go to your site to become a customer
-
Attach a “signature” to your emails pointing back to your site
-
TEST the email on a small cross section of your customer base before you send it to everyone on your list!
