E-mail Marketing
October, 2004
By Tech News Staff Writer Jason Hutchins
Many small organizations and individual programs have been slower to utilize online marketing efforts due to a perception that their constituencies were without Internet access or that the technology itself was difficult or costly to implement. Though some of these concerns were well founded a few years ago, times have changed. E-marketing is now an easy, low-cost way to reach your audience and increasingly your target population is online.
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Online Usage Last month the city of Philadelphia announced a committee to study a plan in which they would implement free or low-cost Internet access across 135 square miles, a system that will change the dynamic of Internet access in low-income neighborhoods. In February of this year, Nielsen/NetRatings reported that home Internet access in the United States had reached nearly 75 percent of households. More encouraging, is that the demographic diversity of online users continues to expand with growing minority access. Forty million adults over the age of 55 now use the Internet and women users have surpassed men by 2 million. The Pew Internet and American Life Project has been collecting demographic poll data for online usage and trends over the last four years and is a good resource for reports. The true test to understand what portion of your constituents are online is to start collecting E-mail addresses. Forrester Research identified that the top concern for most online marketing efforts in the corporate world is to 'grow the list'. Now for the fun part - Creating a Low-Cost Campaign. Now that you have been collecting and cultivating your E-mail list, here a few tricks to get started. Subscribers and Lists Providers have simple wizards where you can create multiple list categories and upload large lists with custom information to personalize your materials such as First Name, Last Name, Title, Organization, etc., Systems will also check your work for errors such as fields where the information does not seem to correspond. You will have access to manage and edit your lists and add individual names as you collect them. Modern online systems will automatically search out duplicate or bad records and produce a report for you indicating which names were not accepted to the list. Creating your Initial Campaign Commercial services provide a menu of templates that a user can customize. Over time you may wish to create your own campaign from scratch by writing HTML, but when starting out, modifying an existing template is recommended. After choosing a template, you will be walked through a step by step process in which you answer questions and select a logo and/or photos to upload for your campaign. Remember the medium you are working with and limit the size of your images to a resolution that will load quickly for your customers. A simple trick to save time during this process - it may be worth looking at a few providers who have templates that resemble the style you wish to use. |
Some Low-Cost E-mail Marketing Providers Campaign HTML/Text List Management Grow the List |
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Test your Campaign Save and name your draft effort and begin running tests for your own review. The online system will allow you to continue editing your creation as long as you have the patience to work on it. When you feel it is getting close to a final product, solicit feedback from colleagues and friends which will lead to a whole new round of edits. Schedule, Launch, and View Results Now we can select our launch date. Look at the calendar and choose wisely (5 p.m. before a holiday weekend might not be a good choice). Was it broadcast? Great! Now we can look at detailed results and refine the process over time. |
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