Affordable Email Marketing for Small Businesses

Today's business environment is becoming increasingly competitive. As a result, individuals like you and me are being bombarded by marketing messages from various media channels. The cost of direct mail is skyrocketing through the roof to the point that the small business owner will not even be able to compete effectively.

As the owner of a small business, you are most likely looking for a cost-effective way to promote yourself. Therefore, it's in your best interest to direct your efforts to your particular niche.

The first thing you need to do is to determine how you will divide up your marketing list. Are you looking to reach a specific geographic area? Are you looking for customers in a certain age or income bracket that you think are your prime audience? Segment your target market so that you reach the most likely potential customers and do not overlap in your efforts.

Once you have your target audience, you can then devise a means of reaching them by delivering high quality content that would be of interest to them. High quality content is the key to getting your message read, seen, and heard. Often, new businesses use the fact that they are brand new to lure their target audience.

Whether it is a product or a service, or simply just informative content, it needs to be able to meet the needs of your customers. This can become significant if the economy suddenly slows down as people cut back on purchases construed as "non-essential." Therefore, if your product is not considered a necessity, you need to market it as something important to your customer. Whether it is solving a problem or satisfying a need or make their life a little bit easier.

Email marketing is a solution for the small business owner that will ensure that their message is being read, seen, and heard. It can be a cost effective solution for small businesses who are getting onto the blogging bandwagon. Your customers can be notified when a new article has been posted.

IntelliContact Pro is web based email marketing and list management software that allows businesses of all sizes as well as individuals to add a newsletter sign up form to their web site, send out personalized HTML or text emails, create unlimited lists, schedule messages, send surveys, and view complete reporting metrics for each campaign including open and click through tracking.

Opt-in email marketing is designed to improve the communication between businesses and their customers, prospects, and subscribers. It can enable small businesses to stay in front of their target market at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing. With opt-in email marketing, businesses can educate their customers by building rapport and their trust. The net result will be an increase in sales and goodwill.

Here are some of the features of IntelliContact Pro
1. Automated Subscription Management
2. Easy to Use HTML Templates
3. Web-based surveys
4. Sign-Up Form Generator
5. Built in WYSIWYG Editor
6. User friendly interface

I signed up to use IntelliContact Pro in conjunction with my new e-zine, Workplace Visions so that I can notify my readers when my latest articles have posted. I am now build a targeted group of steady readers by providing them with high quality content that they can use in their business.

Any company that wants to be successful in conducting business directly over the Internet may want to take advantage of the interactivity of email marketing by providing readers with high quality content, such as a quiz, questionnaire, survey or short article. This puts your name in front of the reader while giving them a chance to be engaged and staying your site for a few minutes.