Purchased Lists and Email

Companies like Salesgenie and Jigsaw have become more popular to media channels recently and their 100 free leads campaigns may seem compelling.  So, if you happened to give them a shot and purchase a list, does that give you the right to send them email now that you own the list?

The answer is no - Because permission actually stands for something in permission based email -

If you are having a hard time generating leads, then purchasing a list through a channel like this may be a good way to spark interest in a few contacts.  Before you can email these people you need to start a conversation with them - By telling them about your services through direct mail or telemarketing efforts and encouraging them to go online where you can then ask them permission for their email address.  Once permission is gained, the barriers are lifted and you have earned the right to start a conversation in a different medium.

Good First Impression

Something to think about as you enter into the weekend.  The first email you send to a customer is the one that is going to set the tone of your ongoing relationship with them.  If you are sending out a tips email and don’t have the time to put in something that is really worth remarking upon, then don’t.

You may be telling yourself that you haven’t put out a newsletter in a while and your last one was so good that they might overlook this latest version that is not as informative.  Think about all of the new customers that have come on since then.  Do you really want their first impression to be a reflection of your hastiness?

It’s important to remember this.  If you don’t have anything really worth talking about, don’t talk for the sake of talking.  Believe me, your customers, I, would much rather receive terrific information once in a longer while than mediocre information on a more frequent basis.

Another thing to note: Be honest - preface your newsletter with “I’m sorry I haven’t written in a while, but I wanted to have something great to say before I sent you anything…”  This leaves a lasting first impression.

Table of Contents

I know we would all like to have simple, graphical, direct call-to-action email marketing messages, but sometimes that just can’t happen.  More times than not, you may find that you have so much to say in your newsletter, that it looks like a white paper.

Your content is probably pretty good, its probably great and your customers probably want to know about what you have to say - They have opted in to receive your message after all…right.  But even the most interested customer doesn’t have the time to read through six paragraphs before she comes across what she really wanted to learn about.

Break your content up into categories and create a table of contents that becomes the first thing your customers see when they open your email.  Use action words as the first few words of each category - like “Learn more about…” or “Attend a free…”, or “Access the latest…”.  Have each category heading link to the appropriate content in the email.  Again, chances are your customers want to read what you give them, but sorry to say, they probably don’t want to read everything.

Give them the choices to navigate your email the same way they would a webpage.  You will be providing a better user experience and will certainly achieve greater results.

Free Traffic

Are you leveraging your website to its full potential?  Are you buying keywords, purchasing placement in relevant newsletters, sending performance based advertising traffic, etc?  These all cost money and should be a part of your marketing mix as the reach is far greater than even an ad in USA Today.

So are there any other channels that can have a relatively similar bang without the buck?

Enter Organic Search - This is the free search listings that are served in Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. that is determined by their crawlers/robots/spiders and not the almighty dollar.  SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a very important and all too often pushed aside marketing strategy.

It’s hard to stay on top of the results as the search engines change their algorithms every few weeks now a days.  But it does not mean you have to hire a professional SEO to make sure your site is search engine spider friendly.  Here are 21 Great SEO Tips compiled by SEO guru SEO Egghead on behalf of Google Engineer Matt Cutts Blog.

Make your site crawlable and optimize for the terms you want to win and watch free, qualified traffic pour in.

Give me something to hold on to

Lead Generation can take many forms and be effective in many aspects, but does it have to stop once the name is securely “opted-in” to the database?  Why not center you lead gen campaign around soemthing that can be passed from your first subscriber to his friends to his friends?  Use a whitepaper, an instructional video - something that can pass hands without you doing the work.

A referral from a friend is worth much more than a banner ad.  Build your database thorugh viral techniques like this and you’ll be surprised how quickly it organically grows.