E-mail Marketing

Today I attended a lecture by Ron Cates of Constant Contact, and it was very informative.  If you don't know, he's basically the chief email marketing guru at the biggest, most established email marketing firm in the world.  If you get a chance to go to one of his seminars it could really change the way you do business, especially when it comes to dealing with your customers.  Fortunately for us, he happens to live here in Phoenix so he often makes himself available to smaller groups, whereas he normally lectures to audiences of several thousand.  This guy is the expert at keeping a dialogue with your customers that will lead to return business and referrals in abundance.

A lot of people don't know that buying and building lists and sending emails to people you don't know is actually considered spamming, not email marketing.  Interestingly, spamming is illegal, and you will be blacklisted for doing it.  Email marketing, on the other hand, is the process of sending your customers and business contacts informative newsletters and special offers in an effort to generate return business and referrals.  When done effectively, it can be 20 times more cost-effective than direct mail, and it can lead to a lot of business.  The most important thing is that you maintain a relationship with your customers, and don't lose them to other vendors who are constantly competing for their attention.  The bottom line is that if you are hesitant to ask your customers for their email addresses and you don't want to send them emails, we need to talk.