Basic Rules of Email Marketing

If you are receiving this course, you are probably interested in learning how to earn income from marketing your products or services online. And you may have heard that one of the most important tools for generating interest, creating brand identity, and increasing your sales is through email marketing.
What you have heard is true. After all, very few people buy from a web site the first time they visit it (unless you have an extraordinary product, price, and a highly convincing web site). But even with all of those, most people visit your site first to “check you out”, and see what you have to offer. So your web site should be designed not only for sales, but to get email addresses.
Once you have a list (we’ll discuss this in more detail in lesson number two), then you will want to use emails to continue to create interest, and bring them back to your site.
This is the whole principle that email marketing pivots upon: create an email list, keep expanding it, and use it to bring customers back to your web site, where you convince them that your product, your service, and your value are outstanding. Your web site is where you will make the sale; the email is what will bring customers there.
But email marketing must be done correctly for it to work well, and there are some basic rules governing it. If done incorrectly, or if you ignore the basic rules of email marketing (at your own peril!), then you can actually drive others away from your list, and the “unsubscribe” button will be clicked on all too often. To avoid this, follow these basic rules, and you’ll see your lists expand, and have happier clients.
Email Rule Number One: Never, Ever, Ever, SPAM
If you believe that SPAM is a nice, aggressive marketing technique, then you are ignoring important studies about online marketing behavior. Simply put, SPAM (unsolicited email) is a waste of time and valuable marketing dollars, and creates a negative perception of your business.
You should be aware that SPAM is also illegal in over 18 states (as in if you are caught in California and Washington, to name two, they can bar you from your server and fine you large amounts). In addition, legislation is before Congress to create federal anti-spam legislation. And if you get added to a SPAM “blacklist”, your email address will be automatically filtered from major ISP servers, and your mails will never get delivered. Plus your ISP will terminate your service…you get the drift.
But most importantly for the marketer, SPAM doesn’t accomplish what you want: target interested consumers. Response rates to your emails are much, much higher if you are sending emails to people who have indicated that they want to receive your information.