Email Marketing

Email marketing is the fastest, cheapest way to reach potential clients. It's also easy to track unlike direct mail. You'll know who has opened your email, how much time they spent reading it, and if they clicked on any links. It's also paperless and therefore environmentally-friendly and I know all of you care about that.

There are a few basic rules that you should follow in order to be effective with email marketing. Permission needs to be given for you to send messages to a client. You don't want to spam and get blacklisted. That would be the end of your business' internet presence. You'll also want to include a 'call to action,' as marketing people like to say. It's great to have a clear, concise, well-designed email, but if you don't ask the customer to do something, you're wasting your time. The CTA could be as simple as 'Click here to view my portfolio.'

It's very important to educate yourself before attempting email marketing. Here are a few places to start:

• EM basics
• EM blog
• Tips
• Where to buy lists of ad agencies and other potential clients: Adbase, Freshlists, Agency Access.
  

You'll want to buy a program designed to manage and track your emails. There are a couple that have been recommended to me. I'll include reviews of them in a subsequent post once I try them out.