Email marketing services are an essential component to any company or e-commerce business.  Permission-based email marketing is well known by marketers as the retention marketing “killer app”.

Companies looking for highmargin value-added services that increase the ROI of their online investment have embraced it. E-mail marketing turns website visitors into lifetime customers more quickly and less expensively than any other marketing vehicle. 

Send it to 1 or 500 customers for the same price.
Websites have traditionally been thought of as either an electronic storefront where visitors can make online purchases, or as an online company brochure. In both cases each website visit is viewed as an independent “session,” and little attempt has been made to establish long-term relationships with site visitors.

By adopting an email marketing strategy, individual website sessions can be transformed into ongoing communications that result in increased customer lifetime value and recurring sales. This is why email marketing is a powerful tool that no business or website should be without. High Tech Business Cards has partnered with Constant Contact®, the leading email marketing service for small businesses, to provide you with a full email marketing program.

Your Objectives
We work with our client to determine the impact they hope to derive from their email campaigns. We start off by asking our clients what they hope to gain by communicating with their audience. Are they hoping to increase general awareness of various products and services, drive immediate sales, bring visitors back to their storefront/website, educate their audience or some combination of the above?

Collecting Subscriber Information
Once we have determined what information our client needs to collect, our client will be ready to begin the process of collecting the information. This process will include leveraging information that they may have collected in the past, and establishing processes through which they can collect information in the future - like a website signup tag (included as part of of a good web site design).

Obtaining/Maintaining Permission
One of the most important components of a winning email strategy is making sure our clients obtain permission from their customers to send email marketing messages. While we enables you to obtain permission from your website visitors and enable you to maintain permission by emailing responsibly, other sources of data that you may wish to import (i.e. customer databases) may not include explicit permission and therefore need additional attention. No pay-for-emai-list will be excepted. Only opt-in or previous customers of yours are part of a good and lawful email campaign.

Selecting Campaign Formats
There are three basic communication formats. These include: newsletters, announcements and promotions. To determine the best format for our clients, we start by reviewing the client’s objectives, and aligning their objectives with the appropriate format.

Communication Frequency
In order to determine the frequency of communication for each client, we need to take into account the client’s objectives, the communication format, amount of content that needs to be created, and the level of interest of the subscribers. For example, it is better to send a well-written quarterly newsletter with relevant links and content, than a hastily generated monthly newsletter with low relevance and poor messaging.

Campaign Analysis
An important component of building a winning email strategy for your clients is the ongoing adjustment of the strategy based on the feedback received from past mailings.

Real-time email tracking and reporting lets you know how many emails were delivered, which addresses bounced, and why—within minutes of sending your email campaign. You also get reports on who opened your email, which links generated the most interest, and who clicked on each one. This valuable information will help you to determine your contacts' interests, the best day and time to send your email campaigns and much more!

Summary
Building a winning email marketing strategy involves properly addressing all of the components above. Walking through each component will help reinforce the value of advertising by email and help you provide better service and more sales to your customers.