Email marketing is an extremely powerful website promotional tool. It is one-to-one direct marketing that is personalised, with well-defined targets, where the results are instant, accurate and easy-to-understand.

So as you can imagine, many companies and individuals have started sending out promotional emails to every email address they can find. Just about everyone hates unsolicited email- or SPAM. Many people have associated email marketing with SPAM, but it is important to understand that not all email marketing is SPAM.

It is possible to use email marketing legitimately, without fear of being banned by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). For instance, people who have agreed to receive promotions from you, and where there is a facility for them to request they don’t wish to receive another message from your company, is perfectly fine. This is called ‘opt-in’ email marketing.

An important website rule is:

Get your visitor’s email address whenever you can!

Once you have a visitor’s email address you can encourage them to return time and again to order from you, for little or no extra cost.

 

Text/HTML

The first thing you need to understand before creating and sending email promotions is the difference between text and HTML emails.

They look different– text-based emails are written in plain text (type)– they do not contain any formatting. You cannot bold or underline anything or change the font in a text-based email.

HTML emails, on the other hand, are written using a markup language, which resides in the backend code of the message. This allows you to use an array of ‘formats’ (typeset/design) in your email.

Text or HTML… which is better?

Some people advocate text-based emails, because they are quick to download by the recipient, are reliable for displaying correctly and do not carry ‘viruses’ or ‘worms’ that may be embedded in the code of an HTML email.

Those who advocate HTML-based emails prefer them for their ‘attractive’ qualities and readability. Most email viewers can display text or HTML-based email perfectly.

Some people argue that email marketers get better results using text-based emails and some people argue the other way. The results differ, depending on your ‘opt-in’ email list.

Test both types of emails and monitor the results. For example, send plain text messages to half your list and HTML email to the other half. Then compare the results. Whatever works best– use it!

 

Segmentation

One of the keys to any successful email marketing campaign is the targeting of your promotions. You can target your promotions by segmenting your customer database as much as possible. Break your customer lists down into groups. You may want to ‘segment’ your customer database based on characteristics such as:

• Existing customers versus prospects
• Customers based on geographical location
• Existing customers– segmented by the products they have bought
• Age
• Sex (male/female)

Once you have your customers segmented you can then target your promotions at those segments at will. For example, if you are writing a promotion for your existing customers, you may concentrate on certain value-added cross-sells, or up-sells, that you have on offer. A promotion aimed at new members may promote a new member offer.

 

Personalisation

Just as in other forms of direct marketing, one of the interesting areas of email marketing is personalisation. In general, the more personalised an email is, the higher your success rate will be.

Remember, the most incredible ‘sound’, with the most impact on any person, is the sound of their name. Good email marketing packages will allow you to heavily personalise your emails. Some of the most common things that you will want to use to personalise your emails are:

• First name
• Last name
• Address
• City or location
• Last product or service purchased
• Date of last purchase
• Most common product category of purchase

Depending on the abilities of your email marketing program, any information you have collected about a prospect can be used to personalize your email promotions to them.

Find Out How to Create an Email Marketing Campaign

We recommend that you read this section before you actually reach the ‘Go-Live’ stage, because there are a few things you need to be aware of, for the ‘Go-Live’ transition to be a smooth process.

There are three important areas that you need to have set up before your website can 'go live':

• the domain name

• email addresses

• a payment gateway (if an ecommerce Website)

Domain Name

Your domain name (what we call your URL- Uniform Resource Locator) is the address that people will use to find your website on the Internet. Your website address is usually in the form of either www.yourcompanyname.co.nz or www.yourcompanyname.com

When we load your website ‘live’ on the Internet we will point your domain name at your new website. If you have requested that we register a new name for you then we will have everything we need in order to make your website visible on the Internet- there is nothing further that you need to do. But if you already own a domain name, then you will need to do one of two things to make your website ‘live’:

• Pass “control” of your domain name to Zeald

We prefer this method. With this method you pass ‘technical control’ of your domain name to Zeald. It is important to understand that Zeald is not taking ownership of your domain name. You are merely putting us in charge of the technical management of your domain name.

In order to pass technical control of your domain name to Zeald you will need to provide us with something called your domain name ‘UDAI’ number. Your existing Internet company (that you originally registered your domain name with) should have sent you this number when you first registered with them. But if you can’t find it, you will need to contact them and ask them to re-send it to you, so that we can transfer everything to our servers.

• Link Your Domain Name to Zeald’s Servers

Some organisations may have a large number of email addresses and other services hosted with another provider and may not want to pass technical control of the domain name to Zeald. In this situation you will need to get the address of the Zeald website servers. Talk to your Internet consultant and they will provide you with the necessary details to pass on to your existing provider.

Important Note: It is important to understand that once you make the necessary changes with your domain name, it may take up to 48 hours for your new website to ‘go live’. This is due to a process called ‘propagation’ which is outlined in the ‘Plan’ module (domain names section).

 
Email Addresses

If you have passed control of your domain name to Zeald then you will need to think about what email addresses you will require on an ongoing basis. Talk to your Zeald Internet consultant about your email requirements.

 
Payment Gateway

If you have an ecommerce website then as part of the ‘Plan’ process you would have discussed the processing of credit card transactions. If you are planning on manually processing credit card transactions then there is nothing further that you need to do.

If you are planning on automating your transaction processing using a ‘payment gateway’, then you will need to ensure that you have an account set up with the payment gateway, and that it is ‘ready to go’. If you have any concerns about this please contact the Support Team.