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"Regular communication with your customers is essential to your success."
- Heidi Richards -
Ezines - The alternative of choice for many companies is a great way to market
your company. All you need is an e-mail account and permission from your customers/clients
to send the ezine. In fact, I have found ezines to be so powerful that I write
and produce five a month. They are:
Self-Marketing News www.self-marketingnews.com
PetalsNCents (a marketing newsletter for the floral industry) - www.petalsncents.com
Creating A Legacy (a newsletter for the nonprofit community) www.creatingalegacy.com
Ramblin' Rose (a newsletter for my customers) – www.EdenFlorist.com
WECommerce News (a newsletter for members of The Women’s ECommerce Association,
International) – www.WECAI.org
Since the whole topic of ezine production can be overwhelming, I will just
touch on the highlights to get you started.
The first thing you must do is collect your customers/clients e-mail addresses.
We collect them when they call, come in the shop, answer surveys, or enter our
contests. We ask for it every time we have interaction with them.
We tell them the benefits. The ezine is filled with product updates, trends,
surveys, special offers, testimonials, discounts and my favorite CONTESTS.
Make it easy to read and brief. Two to three pages max.
One of the most important things we had to deal with was when our lists started
growing (beyond 250); we were very limited in sending through our original e-mail
account (AOL). They have rules and sometimes will freeze an account if you send
too many at once. The format would also get botched sometimes. The lists became
unmanageable when we had to remove unsubscribers and duplicates. Finding the
ones who wish to unsubscribe can be challenging. We switched to another service
hoping they could send our newsletters and maintain our lists. It was a good
service; however, we didn't like the look of our newsletter. It had limited
capabilities (no bold or italic). Since I'm the creative type, I didn't want
my ezines to look like everyone else's. We have now found a program we are very
happy with. There is no monthly fee, just a one-time purchase fee. It is called
Group Mail Pro - Mailing List & Group Management Software. And it only costs
$79.95 (and you own it). For more information visit: http://www.sellshareware.com/CustomView.asp?PrID=34362.&AfID=7838&PageID=1
About the Author:
Heidi Richards is the author of The PMS Principles, Powerful Marketing Strategies
to Grow Your Business and 7 other books. She is also the Founder & CEO of
the Women’s ECommerce Association, International www.WECAI.org (pronounced
wee-ki) – an Internet organization that “Helps Women Do Business on
the WEB.” Basic Membership is FREE. Ms. Richards can be reached at Heidi@speakingwithspirit.com
or heidi@wecai.org. |
