An online newsletter is a great channel to market your business. It is widely regarded as one of the most effective online marketing tactics. One of the best aspects of email marketing is its cheap implementation, so it won’t break the bank if your campaign bombs. The basic process is to collect people’s email addresses then send them emails about your business; most likely you’ll be mentioning your products, deals, promotions, news and the like.
Where your website comes in is as a tool to add subscribers to your mailing list. You do this by adding signup forms to your website. These forms can be placed unobtrusively in a footer or sidebar, or they can appear in popups which force the site visitor to see them. If you are running a WordPress website and you are emailing marketing through the MailChimp service, you can use the MailChimp for WordPress plugin to handle signups. As well as placing standalone signup forms in the website, you can also give visitors the opportunity to sign up when buying a product through WooCommerce, or writing a comment in your blog.
We usually direct clients to MailChimp as an email marketing service. If you have less than 2000 subscribers, then MailChimp is free to use so it’s great for businesses starting out. You manage your email list, design attractive email templates and send the emails out all within the MailChimp online interface. After the 2001st subscriber, the price to use MailChimp increases rather quickly. One of the options below might be more suitable if your business has many thousands of subscribers.
If you are running an email marketing campaign, you must make sure to abide by the anti-spam laws of your country. In Australia the relevant law is the Australian Spam Act 2003. The two most important things to remember are:
Other email marketing services include: