Advanced Email Marketing Tips

Often when online marketers think about email marketing, they think of sending a special, coupon or other sales-y email to an email list. Or, they think of sending an e-newsletter that just talks about their products or services. These are ways to launch an email marketing campaign, but they are not the only ways. There are other, less thought of ways to do effective email marketing.

Status Updates
Status updates are typically email updates sent to users or subscribers informing them of any special changes or bugs a software or web application may be experiencing. Twitter Status immediately comes to mind. Twitter has a blog that updates Twitter users on problems or errors the site is experiencing. You can subscribe to these updates, and whenever a problem occurs, the Twitter Status team immediately updates this blog.

We rarely think of these types of API status updates in the context of email marketing. But they certainly can be an extension of an email marketing. If you have web applications or software to which you make changes regularly, status updates are a great way to keep in contact with your loyal, regular users. We suggest that you include a reply-to email address and not merely use a "do-not-reply" auto-response for such status updates. This encourages your users to ask questions and seek clarification about the service or application in question.

For example, we have a Twitter app that we built called Twtsynd. We've just released it from Beta testing. But of course, as with most apps, there is constant tweaking and bug fixing that has to take place. We make it a point to notify our users of these bug fixes. We also notify them of application enhancements. Recently, we've taken it one step further. Since Twtsynd syndicates user tweets on other member status feeds, we've added an opt-out option. Whenever a user uses Twtsynd, all members get an email asking them to approve or deny the tweet.

This is a form of email marketing, when you think about it. It encourages users to get to know each other via email. It keeps our brand fresher in the minds of users because they each get an email whenever someone uses the service. If they have any questions or comments, they can reply to the email, giving our staff another opportunity to connect with them and offer quality customer service.

Confirmation Emails
Another aspect of advanced email marketing strategy is sending out email confirmations. Many e-commerce sites will, for example, send a confirmation email to a user when they make a purchase on a site. But this is of course not the only time for using a confirmation email.

For instance, we use a confirmation email for our press release submission site. We use it both for adding value to the service, but also for brand reminders. Whenever a user submits a press release to our site at http://gnosisarts.com/home/Press_Releases , they are automatically sent an email with the press release content they just submitted. The email notifies them that we have received their submission. But it also allows them to see the content they've sent and request any changes to it if necessary. Again, by using a confirmation email, we both improve our customer support as well as the user-experience of the service.

Auto Responders
When used sparingly, auto responders make excellent email marketing tools. You should be very selective in the use of auto-responders, and there are certainly wrong ways to use them. For example, having an auto-responder on every email sent to you is probably not a good idea, as it can annoy customers. However, selective, strategic use of auto responders can be great for branding.

For example, we use an auto-responder for our Wikipedia Podcast download. When people visit our site and choose to download the podcast, they receive an auto-generated email. The email includes the special link they can click on to download the podcast. This is good for email marketing because it encourages a past website visitor to return to our site. This is good for online marketing because, when they return to the site, they now are presented with another opportunity to learn more about our products and services, to surf around to other parts of the site they haven't visited, and to be impressed with our brand again. Remember, branding online has a lot to do with remembrance, and what better way to help a brand "stick" in the mind of a web user, than to create a repeat visitor out of them? Auto responders can facilitate this.