In this section we take a close look at e-Marketing and the possible impact it can have on your business

Before we begin however, perhaps it helps to get a clear understanding of what e-Marketing really does mean?

e-Marketing or email marketing is simply an easy vehicle to communicate interactively with your customer and opt-in subscriber database via email

Whether you choose to do this through a regular company news bulletin, a special offers newsletter or a mixture of the two, is simply a matter of working out which form produces the best results

We have clients who have increased their profits from 100% - 400% using these strategies - so we're pretty confident that they do work!

Most marketing efforts focus on acquiring new customers and sadly one of the most overlooked elements of marketing success is communication with your existing customers

The truth is that there is a veritable 'goldmine' hidden in relationships with your current customers

We're all aware of the vast panoply of marketing strategies for getting new customers but intersperse some of those with nurturing your relationships with your existing customers and you will see both your profits and customer loyalty increase tenfold

e-Marketing is now very much part of the marketing mix of the Top Fortune 500 companies such as IBM, Dell, Sony etc; and the reasons are fairly obvious:

Take a close look at the average response rates below from the following marketing disciplines

0.5% - 1% - Banner ads

1% - 2% - Direct Mail

10% - 15% - Opt-in Email

Given these figures it makes perfect sense to adopt e-Marketing into the conventional mix to drive traffic and further increase revenue and profits and encourage brand loyalty

And because it is one of the cheapest forms of marketing online it does pack a pretty powerful argument for serious consideration

Given the ongoing demise of the effectiveness of Banner ads, the need to pursue new ways to identify and captivate the online buying public is ever constant

Happily, there are a number of now well-established methods to increase both traffic and revenues most notably via email marketing campaigns and targeted keyword cost-per-click campaigns run by almost all of the top search engines today

So, what are the most important ingredients to run a successful e-marketing campaign?

Firstly, and the most obvious one of course is to have sections on your web sites where visitors can opt-in to receive your special offer newsletters, new product launch notifications etc;

Email Marketing - A quick checklist

Here's a quick checklist of the type of questions that you should be asking yourself before you embark on any e-Marketing campaign:

What do you have to tempt your existing customers with?

Is there something about you/your company that will benefit them to know about?

What are you not offering existing customers that you could possibly be offering?

What would happen if you doubled your contact/communication with them?

Recent studies indicate that most people who receive email offers and newsletters have limited time to deliberate over their emails and consider the products they may want to purchase

The key is to make sure your messages are clear, concise, and serve as a convenience factor for your target audience

When e-Marketeer's get this mix right then the rewards can be quite simply staggering with unprecedented sales and repeat orders