One of the many ways your web site can help your business grow is by serving as a place where potential customers can sign up for your email newsletter.
An email newsletter is a great way to communicate with prospective customers. Instead of “spraying and praying” with your marketing message, you can send your marketing message to a list of people who have ASKED for more information from you.
Done correctly, an email newsletter is a great way to market your business.
So what’s not to love about email newsletters?
Done INCORRECTLY they can do more harm than good for your business.
It’s important to remember to respect the people who have signed up for your email newsletter. One of the WORST things you can do is to disrespect your email list subscribers. An example of such blatant disrespect is illustrated by an email I received this morning.
The email newsletter subject line that caught my attention in a negative way reads like this:
#%name%#, we have a special offer for you….
The following is an attempt to explain what went wrong to non-technical people. This is a “Geek into English” translation.
When people sign up for your email newsletter – they fill out an online form. Think of each field (box where you type in your name or email address) as a mail slot.
When someone fills out the form to sign up for your email newsletter – they fill out a slip of paper which gets put into this slot. You can then “pull” information from these slots to send emails to the people on your email newsletter list.
You’ve heard the saying, “the money is in the list.” Well, I’m here to help you NOT to kill the goose that has the potential of laying golden eggs for your business.
The way it’s SUPPOSED to work is that when you enter the right coding, the email program will pull whatever is on the slip of paper located in the “name” slot of the database and plug whatever is there into that spot in the email subject line. However, if your database doesn’t HAVE a slot called “name” – you’ll see the mess in the subject line I received above.
The REASON for using your name, called by the coding #% name %# , in the email subject is it helps to personalize the email. When an email is addressed to you personally by name – instead of a general “hey you” – you’re more likely to open the email.
However, by NOT using this correctly – you do more harm than good. Those email newsletter subscribers you worked so hard to sign up – well, you are capturing their attention – but not in a good way.
If you need help in choosing an email newsletter delivery service or setting up an email newsletter that helps to build your business without wearing you out – contact VVAWebHelp today!
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