Despite these statistics, when used correctly, email marketing campaigns are a very efficient and cost-effective method of getting your message out to your prospects, and can be utilized as one of your marketing touches in a multi-touch marketing campaign that includes direct mail letters, postcards and telemarketing activity. More than 40% of all email sent each day is considered spam – which results in 12.4 billion spam emails sent each and every day!
In order to get permission to email prospects, you will need to collect email addresses through “opt-in” methods – they can sign up for your newsletter from your website or blog, enter an email address in order to download a white paper, case study or when requested via a phone call. These are all legitimate methods for gathering email addresses and obtaining permission to send your prospects email.
Email Templates
Using the marketing collateral you designed previously for postcards and direct-mail campaigns, you will duplicate them in the form of an HTML email template. The reason you duplicate the same message and appearance across different media is “Marketing 101”: the more impressions you make on the prospects, the greater their awareness and trust of your organization is, and the more marketing touches you execute, the better your chances of closing business. Having a consistent theme and marketing message across all of your collateral per marketing campaign is far more effective and memorable to prospects than whipping up a new marketing message each time you mail a postcard or send an email for a specific campaign.
Email Delivery and Measuring Your Results
If your PSA or marketing solution does not provide marketing campaign management capabilities, you'll want to sign up with a service to help you manage your email marketing lists and campaigns. Autoresponders will allow you to keep track of the people you are marketing to, categorized by groups if necessary, schedule delivery of newsletters and marketing messages, and give you a way to measure the effectiveness of every email you send out to your lists. There are numerous automated electronic message management programs available online, including Constant Contact (www.constantcontact.com) and MailChimp (www.mailchimp.com).
These 3rd party electronic message management solutions make email marketing list management simple, and provide the ability to blast out thousands of emails quickly, and with only a few mouse clicks. A real benefit to using these solutions is their capability to collect contact information submitted to your website and automatically compile it into your email marketing list. They will even email you when someone new joins your list.
This provides the ability to create all of your HTML email and Newsletter content quickly and easily, and manage opt-outs and bounces automatically. In addition to inviting prospects to join your mailing list via your website, newsletters, case studies, white papers, etc., you can also place a link in your email signature, inviting prospects to sign up for your newsletters or mailing list, increasing your potential opt-in rate.
One of the best features of creating and sending email through a management solution is that you can view an online report of all emails that were opened, and which hyperlinks were clicked, so you can gauge the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns. If you can't measure the results of your marketing efforts – you won't know how to make improvements to increase your sales and potential revenues.
MSP University's Collateral as a Service
If the idea of creating the design and content for your marketing collateral overwhelms you, consider joining MSP University as a Premium Member to access our Collateral as a Service (CaaS). We regularly design and develop entire solution and service-specific marketing campaign collateral including HTML email templates, direct mail letters, line cards, postcards and PowerPoint presentations to increase your prospects' trust and familiarity with you. All you need to do is add your company contact information and branding, and you're ready to market! This is only one of the many benefits available to Premium MSP University Members. Click here for more information on CaaS.
Erick Simpson
MSP University
Subscribe to my blog here
Subscribe to our Newsletter here
Join MSP University FREE for all things Managed Services
MSP University helps Solution Providers succeed...period.
Hi Erick,
A very timely topic! We’ve found more and more IT companies are embracing the concept of marketing. While you should be marketing constantly, most companies don't. When times are good, marketing is often ignored. When times are tough, marketing is often the first to receive cut backs. With today's economy, marketing is CRITICAL!
You’ve outlined some very important steps for marketing in this article. I’m excited to come out to your boot camp this month and show how Tigerpaw can fully automate your marketing campaigns, and then take those leads and create quotes, fulfill orders, purchase from vendors, track serial numbers and inventory, and manage service orders (PSA/MSP), techs, and contracts all from within one solution!
See you in a few weeks!
James Foxall
Senior Vice President
Tigerpaw Software
Posted by: James Foxall (Tigerpaw Software) | May 04, 2009 at 06:04 AM