The goal of all marketing is to attract interest in, build desire for, and generate sales of your products or services. Email marketing is a perfect medium to pick up where other marketing leaves off. Email marketing is still one of the most cost effective ways to contact prospects and customers. It’s far cheaper than traditional bulk postage mail and in many cases can have a much larger impact on immediate sales and long-term relationship strength than traditional advertising.

When done correctly, email marketing can be an extremely powerful and effective marketing technique. It’s a medium that allows a buyer and seller to freely communicate with one another and build a relationship based on value and trust. When done incorrectly, however, email marketing can be destructive, erode brand equity, and turn your happy clients into litigious flamers. It is for this reason that one must make sure they send only permission-based email communications to their subscribers.

Before we proceed any further, let’s define exactly what permission-based email marketing is. It is important to note that there are two types of email marketing. One can either send unsolicited email promotions or send out emails only to persons who have requested to receive them. Unsolicited email is, of course, called spam. Sending spam will ruin any legitimate organization’s reputation and brand value faster than mold grows on bread that is left outside in the middle of summer. Rule number one of becoming an intelligent email marketer is to not send unsolicited email.

Permission-based email marketing, on the other hand, is used effectively everyday by hundreds of thousands of organizations to build the value of their brands, increase sales, and strengthen the relationships they have with their clients and subscribers. The key difference, of course, is that these senders are only sending messages to persons who have requested to receive them.

Let’s take a second to understand the key difference between spam and permission-based emails.

The Axiom of Value

For the last 100 years, companies have relied on traditional advertising in the form of catchy jingles, TV commercials, billboards, print ads in newspapers and magazines, direct mail, hot air balloons, and waving mascots. The technique is to interrupt a radio listener, TV viewer, or magazine reader with an attention grabbing ad that compels the consumer to buy the company’s product or at least have the product closer to the forefront of his or her mind next time the individual is making a buying decision.

In most instances, advertising is acceptable to the consumer. Most people don’t mind seeing ads while watching television, listening to the radio, or reading magazines—or at least they understand that these ads are necessary in order to receive the content they are seeing, reading, or hearing. While technologies like TiVo, DVR, and satellite radio are challenging advertisers to come up with new methods of advertising, other technologies such as Internet television require users to watch a 30-second advertisement prior to the start of a show. The point is, as long as value is provided, consumers will be willing to be exposed to a few advertisements.

This same axiom holds true online. As long as your web site provides content that people value, visitors will continue returning to the site even if there are a few banner ads or Google AdWords boxes within the page layout. While some web sites, such as WSJ.com, have successfully switched to a subscription-based model, many more web sites rely on banner, box, skyscraper, and contextual advertisements to earn the bulk of their income.

The same axiom, that as long as value is provided, consumers will be willing to be exposed to a few advertisements, also holds true with email. As long as one provides value—whether by providing content on a topic a recipient is interested in or a discount off a product related to one purchased previously—people will allow you to continue to contact them. Each and every email you send of course contains your logo, information on your products and services, and links to your web sites. These items are the advertising and should be surrounded on all sides by the items which make the communication actually add value to the lives of your readers.

Spam however, by its very nature, breaks the axiom. Unsolicited bulk email very rarely has any value. Spam is usually irrelevant, always impersonal, and rarely helpful. Everyone with an email inbox knows how aggravating it is to sort through forty new emails to only find two that are from persons you know. While spam may make money for persons in Eastern Europe promoting fake drugs, I feel strongly that sending spam will always have a net negative impact on any legitimate organization.

For this reason, we strongly recommend only sending permission-based email, also known as opt-in email. Permission-based email marketing can be an extremely effective way to increase visitor-to-sale conversion rates, build strong relationships with your customers, and turn your one-time buyers into lifetime product evangelizers who recommend your organization to everyone they know. Permission-based email marketing allows companies to develop and sustain relationships with their prospects and consumers by creating value. Permission marketing is about “turning strangers into friends and friends into customers” as Seth Godin likes to say.

The nature of permission marketing—building a relationship with a prospect or expanding the relationship with an existing customer over time—allows you to concentrate on the prospects and customers who are really interested in what you have to sell and are more than willing to become repeat customers.

The Five-Step Process of Permission Email Marketing

There is a simple five-step process in putting a successful permission-based email marketing campaign in place. This process is reviewed below.

1. Start using a permission-based email marketing software that allows you to easily create newsletters, automatically manage subscribes, unsubscribes, bounces, and view reporting statistics like opens and clickthroughs.

2. Decide on the type and frequency of email communication you will be sending. We recommend sending at least a monthly newsletter. You can certainly send multiple newsletters if you sell different types of products. You can also send promotional messages offering a discount or coupon for a product or service.

3. Add a sign-up form to your web site so you can start collecting subscribers and import any existing lists of subscribers that have already requested your communications. It is generally also safe to import the names of anyone who has done business with you in the past year, provided you will be sending content relevant to what they purchased.

4. Create a good email template by using a template provided within the email software, having your in-house team create one, or using the custom design services of the email software company.

5. Develop quality relevant content for your newsletter or message and send it out to your list. Continue sending your newsletters, announcements, or promotions with consistent frequency. As your list grows, you will notice increased traffic (and if applicable, increased sales) on the day of and the days following an email send.

By providing quality relevant content you will succeed in keeping your brand mindshare at the front of the mind of your customers and cement strong relationships with your subscribers.

The objective of marketing is to spark interest, provoke curiosity for the products and services and generate sales of the goods. Email marketing is just what you think – sending messages to existing or potential customers via email. Email marketing is an extremely powerful and effective marketing technique; it is also one of the most cost effective ways to tell the world about the products and services you offer. It’s much cheaper than a traditional advertising and may have a larger impact on immediate sales and long-term relationship strength.

Email marketing makes it possible for a seller and a buyer to communicate quickly and easily with one another creating a trust relationship. It’s “good” email marketing. But we must admit that there is a reverse side of email marketing. Yes, I mean Spam. Not all email marketers are warm and fuzzy. There are many among them who send unsolicited email promotions. Sending spam ruins a good reputation of any legitimate company or organization and can turn your happy customers into your worst enemies.

So, if you value your fair name and want to build a long-term relationship with your clients remember the rule number one of email marketing – not send unsolicited email.

Send permission-based email messages. The core of permission-based email marketing is that effective, targeted email messages are sent to a carefully controlled list of recipients who gave you the permission to contact them. It means that people on your list requested that you send them emails. And you would be wiser if you ask them to confirm their wish to be added to your list just to ensure that they didn’t subscribe by mistake, or that someone else didn’t subscribe them to your list. All this will serve you as a proof that you are not spamming. Permission-based email marketing allows you focusing on the prospects and customers who are really interested in what you are offering and are more than willing to become repeat customers.

Permission-based email campaign outlines Where to start from? How to collect people for a permission-based email campaign? How to manage a list of collected recipients? Every intelligent email marketer asks himself these obvious questions. We’ll review the process of putting a successful permission-based email campaign into effect below:

1) Get a system to manage your email marketing subscribers and mailings. You’ll need bulk email management software that will allow you create newsletters, manage subscribes, unsubscribes, bounces, and view reporting statistics like opens and clickthroughs. You can buy a program and run your email campaign yourself, or you can pay someone else to run it for you.

2) Create a sign-up form on your web site so you can start collecting subscribers. If you already have any lists of subscribers that have requested your communications, import those lists into you email management software.

3) Design a good email template for your newsletters. If you are not a HTML email designer, you can choose a template provided with email software, or hire someone else to create a template for you. G-Lock EasyMail provides you with several email templates within the software that can be used free of charge. A rich library of email templates is here: http://www.hotemailtemplates.com/

4) Compose the content for your newsletter. Your newsletter must contain your logo, information on your products and services, and links to your web sites. Send only a quality relevant content. Do not send meaningless emails. Check the spelling of your message carefully. Have someone else read it too.

5) Test your email newsletter. It would be smart to test your email message before sending it out to the world. Send it to yourself or to your associates to ensure that it looks like you expected.

6) Send your newsletter to your list. Think about the frequency of the email newsletter you will be sending. We recommend that you send a newsletter once a month at least. You can certainly send multiple newsletters if you sell different types of products, or have multiple email lists with relevant customers. You can also send promotional messages from time to time offering a discount coupon for a product or service, or providing your customers with the information they may be interested in. Sending your newsletters with a consistent frequency will let your subscribers know that you are in business and care about them. As your list grows, you will notice increased traffic (and increased sales) on the day of and the days following an email send.

7) Manage your bounces and unsubscribes. It’s nice if your email management software does this automatically. Do not send the messages to bounced email addresses, or to people who unsubscribed.

Wisely and correctly done email marketing can give you a great return for less investment of time and money.