42 Making the most of email marketing

What is email marketing?

Almost everyone uses email to communicate these days. Most households have a home computer and an email address even if they are not in business. Many people open their emails before they open their post.

Email marketing is what you do when you use the email system we are all familiar with to promote your business to your customers. This may take the form of a simple straightforward email or email newsletter. There are several very good services on the market today that enable you to build email lists easily through website marketing activities and communicate via bulk email as often as you want or need to.

Email marketing can be used for appointment reminders, special offers, useful information or ideas, new product launches, new services, competitions and more.

Why is email marketing valuable?

Email marketing is an excellent low cost way of keeping in regular contact with both existing and potential customers. The people you come into contact with during the course of your marketing and networking activities may not all be ready to do business with you right now. If, however, you give them a very good reason to provide you with their email address and permission to keep in touch, the chances of you being around when they are ready to buy are much higher.

Email marketing is easy and quick to do and you can potentially communicate with large numbers of people in a very personal way. Email marketing is potentially much more valuable to you than a costly direct mail campaign.

Your challenge

You will need to consider the amount of spam that the majority of people get bothered by on a daily basis. It can be overwhelming for many people. Your email needs to be something that people welcome. You will need to think very carefully about what you use it for. Email marketing may be quick but it is not something that should be put together in a hurry. You will need to create a situation where people look forward to your email because they think that they are going to get something of value from it. You also need to be careful not to overdo it. Sending emails every day or even every week can be just too much for many people. You will need to gauge what is right for your client base and be sensitive to their needs.

When you use email marketing your email address is a major part of your marketing message, so it is important to get this right. It will need to be easy to use and easy to remember. If it is long-winded with lots of letters and words that are difficult to spell the chances are that you will lose some business because of it. Your email should read in a way which helps you come across as credible business.

So choose email addresses that make it completely clear what business you are in and make them as easy and as straight-forward as you can to use.

What makes email marketing work?

To make this work you will need to build a good list of prospects first. This is covered in Chapter 16 in the section on how to build an opt-in mailing list.

HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN EMAIL MARKETING SYSTEM – SPECIAL RESPONSE CHECKLIST

• Do you think that email marketing could work for you?
• How are you going to attract email addresses and get permission to communicate?
• You will need to investigate the internet based email marketing systems that are available. * You may consider auto response systems that can be set up to run sequences of emails.
• Make sure you have a system for recording the email addresses that you collect. A spreadsheet is a simple way of doing this. This can be uploaded into your email contact database or any online system that you use.
• You will need to create your email campaign ideas and decide how you can keep your prospects interested in you and your business. Remember to focus on giving something of value, as opposed to solely pitching your services.
• Make sure that you get your emails proof-read. Sending out bulk emails with spelling or grammatical errors is not good for your professional image.
• Send out a test email to yourself and another person and look at it from the customers’ point of view before you press the button on the complete database.
• Consider how you will measure and monitor the response you get.

How to use this information

Email marketing can work very well for you if you take time to set up a system to attract and deliver efficiently. If you have experienced junk mail you will know what annoys you and clogs up the inbox. You must avoid doing this at all costs. If you use email marketing it must be targeted and valuable. Concentrate on this and you will be successful.

43 Using hospitality and special days

You can build stronger relationships with both your key customers and prospective clients by inviting them to join you for hospitality at special events. Corporate hospitality is available at a variety of memorable and important events both at home and overseas. A day at the races, a box at the British Grand Prix, a party at the Henley Royal Regatta, tickets for Wimbledon or world cup football are just some of the things you can do. You can provide a special tent or table dedicated to your organisation and the pleasure of your guests. You can organise this yourself or you can use the services of any number of corporate hospitality and event organisers.

You can offer your clients opportunities to find out more about your products and services by creating special events that educate them and provide fun and entertainment at the same time. There is a section in Chapter 11 of this book that focuses solely on how to use events and talks to sell your business.

You can invite clients and their teams to join you and your teams for a day of fun and bonding by going go-carting, playing golf, sailing or partying at a polo match.

You can take your clients out for a special lunch or dinner or to the theatre. You can invite them to special conferences or congresses abroad. Christmas parties or summer barbeques can be a less expensive way of providing fun and entertainment if you have a smaller budget.

Why are invitations to special events important?

Being invited to a unique special event or day out can be exciting for your customers. It will make them feel highly valued by you. The invitation acknowledges their importance to you. This can only be good for your relationship with them. If the event you choose is high profile you stand to gain the kudos that goes with it. People will want to attend the event and will connect your organisation with giving them that opportunity. If you simply go out and have fun with your customers and get to know them in a social setting, you will create the opportunity to build a much stronger connection. People do business with people who they like and trust. This is one of the greatest rapport-building opportunities.

Your challenge

Your challenge will be to choose the right events and not to spend your entire marketing budget in one go. Providing corporate hospitality and tickets for high profile events can be expensive so you need to weigh up the potential the event has for building stronger existing client relationships and introducing new ones.

If you do decide to have a hospitality tent, room or table at an event you will need to make sure that you make the most of it. This will take planning and organising.

What makes hospitality and special days work?

• You must be clear exactly what you want the event to achieve for you.
• Choose the right event and the right mix of people.
• Make sure it is well organised from invitation to follow up.
• Staff are fully briefed, each having an important role to play.
• The senior people in your organisation commit to attend the day.
• Your guests’ names are remembered.
• The day is used to reinforce your organisation’s values.
• You look after your guests and put their well-being and enjoyment at the top of your priority list.
• If you offer your guests the opportunity to find out more about the people in your organisation, take the time to find out more about them too.
• Consider creative ways to help your guests relax and get to know each other.
• It should be more social than business – it is nice just to relax sometimes.
• Make sure that you have a proper follow-up system in place.
• Get feedback – find out what your guests think about the day.

HOSPITALITY EVENT OR SPECIAL DAY – SPECIAL RESPONSE CHECKLIST

• What do you want the day to achieve? (customer/team bonding, new business, keep existing customers, product launch, say thank you).
• Who would you invite and why?
• What are the interests of the people you are considering?
• What events do you think your guests would connect with?
• Which events would give your organisation some distinction?
• What needs planning? (invitations, hospitality area layout and design, seating plans, time-table, team briefing, follow up).
• How will you measure the success of the event?
• How will you know personally if it has been successful?

How to use this information

If you haven’t considered using hospitality, special days out or events to build your client relationships maybe this is your chance to do that. Investigate what you could do. Ask your clients what they would like to do and get your best ones involved in your decision making process. Ask your team what they think. Try it and see what happens.