What is Permission Based Email Marketing?
Does having permission to email really make a difference? Effective email marketing is at the heart of any good lead generation program online.
But…
Emailing people who have not requested your information is spam and can land you in trouble with potential customers, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and even the law. Permission or opt in email marketing is the only kind of bulk email marketing you should be considering. But what kind of permission do you need? What does permission mean? And once you’ve got permission what should you do with it?
What Does Permission Mean and What Type of Permission Do You Need?
Permission means that a customer has actively said that they would like to receive more information from you. For example, if you ask people to download a special report by providing their email address you need to make it clear that you will then send them further information. This should be done with a clear statement and what is called a ‘double opt in’. A double opt in is where the customer first signs up for information on your website. They then receive an email to confirm that they would like further information and a link to finalize it. Using double opt in ensures that your customers really do give their permission.
Forgetting to tick a box to ‘opt out’ is not the same as opting in.
What do You do When You Have Permission?
Once you’ve got permission you can safely contact your prospective customers by email. You should bear in mind three points of good permission-based email marketing; your communications should be relevant, personal and expected.
- Relevant means they are on a topic that interests your prospects.
- Personal means that you based your communications on what you know about your customers and prospects – previous customers wouldn’t get the same message as a new prospect for example
- Expected means that they know what they will receive and when they will receive it – if you said that you will send them a newsletter once a month, sending a sales pitch once a week is not OK.
Permission is dependent on you living up to your end of the bargain. Prospects can easily decide to stop receiving your message (and you need to make it easy for them to do so) or simply ignore them when they arrive. There’s no point in having a huge list if nobody reads your emails.
Growing Your Permission Over Time
In the same way that a customer can take away their permission they can also increase it. As a marketer your job is to increase permission over time – from getting permissionto send email, to getting the OK to show up for a sales call, to closing the sale, to offering new products or services to existing customers.
This all takes time – which means you need to plan your permission based email marketing campaign as an ongoing program.
Some Practical Points on Permission Based Email Marketing
Your Opt In Process: Your opt in process will usually start with a simple form on your website. Keep the initial information to a minimum – email and name will usually do.
You can and should use an auto-responder (a piece of software that sends out pre-written emails) to handle the sign up process. It’s not a great idea to try and send bulk email from your normal email program. A professional solution is best and there are plenty to choose from.
For a small list you should be expecting to pay as little as $20-30 a month ( some examples include constant contact, i contact, get response). Most professional services can help you manage multiple lists, will have email templates for you to use and provide good tracking tools so you can see how each email you send performs.
What Next?
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