Several weeks ago my friend Mikel Bruce from Web Flexor was the featured speaker at my LeTip group, educating us about marketing. One of the core ideas that he talked about was that each business needs multiple methods of marketing their business, not just one. Some businesses solely rely on referrals from friends. Some use radio, networking, or print advertising. Mikel advocated that to be successful, especially in today's economy, you should have at least two or three marketing strategies to get customers.

My question to you is, have you added email marketing to your tool belt for growing your business? The effectiveness of email marketing makes it a very valuable tool to have. It's a low cost option to keep yourself in front of your customers, provide better service, and build up your business.

It's Targeted

The subscribers on your email lists are people that have either done business with you or expressed an interest in what you have to say. Again: They are interested in what you have to say. If you have an audience that wants to learn from you, hear about your products and services, do business with you, what's holding your back from reaching out to them?

Return on Investment

In a research report by the Direct Marketers Association, they discovered that the return on investment for email marketing was approximately $57 in 2005. So statistically, for every dollar spent in Email Advertising, that dollar generated $57 in revenue - pretty amazing! The bad news is that that it's estimated that the ROI has shrunk to about $46. The good news is that it almost doubles other online marketing methods (around $20 ROI) and still blows traditional print catalogs' (~$7 ROI) out of the water.

Precise Performance Metrics

One of the great features of online marketing that trumps traditional marketing methods is that you have detailed performance metrics. With traditional advertising options, such as radio spots, advertising in a newspaper, or magazine, the best the magazine could tell you is their estimated subscriber base, of which a certain percentage may see or hear your ad.

With email marketing, all your efforts can be tracked:

Burn through those '7' touchpoints...

A general rule of thumb when it comes to sales, is that you have to ask seven times before a customer finally says 'Yes!'. A regular email newsletter is an effective and low cost way to put yourself in front of your customers and burn through those touchpoints to get the sale.

Expert Reputation

An insightful newsletter can help you build up your reputation as an expert in your field. Well-crafted newsletters need to deliver 'Real Value' - information that your subscribers would welcome in their inbox. Stuffing subscribers' inboxes with advertisements is a quick way to get classified as SPAM. Educate or entertain first, then promote.

Email marketing, done right (ie NO SPAMMING!), is a great, cost effective way of reaching out to your market, putting yourself in the forefront of customers' minds, and delivering more value to your customers.

• How many people your email blast was sent to
• How many people received your email campaign
• How many people opened up your message
• How many people clicked on links in your message
• How many clicks each link in your message received
• Who viewed your message & how many times they viewed it
• Who clicked on their links and how many times they clicked on it
• How many times your email piece was 'Forwarded to a Friend'
• and more...
With these metrics, you can trace a user all the way through the purchase process, and actually be able to tell how much business your email campaigns are generating. And after you have a couple of campaigns under your belt, you can compare the performance of each campaign against each other, helping you refine your email marketing pieces to generate the maximum number of conversions.