Posts Tagged ‘newsletter’

Mail Chimp and Email Marketing

September 18th, 2009

So you’ve got a great list of let’s say 1,000 email addresses and you don’t know what to do. Mailchimp! Yes! Email marketing is one of the greatest things ever. Increase your revenue, send out customer newsletters, promotions and whatever you can think of. Just don’t be a spammer, I beg of you..

So what is Mail Chimp?

MailChimp is an Ecommerce Email Marketing System. Simply upload your customer lists, create an email in HTML or plain text (heck I dont know anyone who reads plain text anymore) and blast away. Your email gets sent out who anyone in your customer database (or you can segment even further, prospects, customers, partners..etc). Emails get sent out, you get statistics on who opened what email, your open rate, bounce rates and the best part, customer retention and ROI depending on what you do.  In a nutshell, it’s a free service (yea, free trials are good!) in which you can communicate to your prospects and buyers via email.

Here are some screenshot’s of some test emails (I don’t mind sharing, spread the knowledge)

Mail Chimp Dashboard

Mail Chimp Dashboard

How do I signup? Is it free?

  1. Signup here (be sure to select the free plan if you’d like to try, to lift limitations, you’ll have to purchase)

If you’re wondering why the URL has an AIF id, (affiliate ID) its because I added my affiliate ID on the link so you get an extra value added $30 bonus when you signup or become a customer. Its a refferal system. (I wont hide it !)

After you have signed up, you’ll receive your welcome email from Mail Chimp with all the details you need to know to get started. It’s fun, exiciting, and brings you to a whole new level of marketing.

So why Mail Chimp and not another provider?

Truth be told, Mail Chimp is one of the only companies that recently opened up one of their plans for a free offer, for life. Send up to 2,500 emails per month to a maximum list of 500 subscribers. Heck, thats enough for a small company to get started then upgrade their plan.

What are my benefits?

  • Manage and grow your mailing list
  • Great for start-up companies with limited budget
  • Get into the inbox instead of SPAM/JUNK folders
  • Design beautiful inline emails
  • Track your email campaigns

Mail Chimp is great, if they weren’t, I dont think the companies below would signup

  • FireFox
  • Fujitsu
  • Magneto
  • Intel
  • Canon
  • Staples and much more…

OK enough about Mail Chimp, if you are interested (highly recommended), signup here.

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Step 1- Understanding Marketing

September 16th, 2009

To market your audience, you must understand what marketing is. If you cannot explain the definition of marketing in more than 4 variants, you do not understand the concept.

Heres a quick overview

  1. Marketing consists of strategies used to indentify needs and wants. In lamens term, you have something that the customer needs; market to them.
  2. Promoting and exchanging information about your product/service in a variety of channels.
  3. Strategy of allocating resources (time and money) in order to achieve your objectives.
  4. Creating customers, keep customers (customer rentention), and satisfy customers.

Very well. When marketing a product or service, you will need to understand the core ethics of marketing aka “Marketing Etiquette”. You don’t just blast out an email to a 1,000,000 prospect list and expect money. No. You have to build your brand, create the want, answer the need. You need to pitch these to your customers. If you are selling shoes or you are a shoe e-tailer, don’t just send emails and expect thousands of dollars in return. You need to slowy define your product and bring it to their attention. Again, you have to create the need for it and answer the want(you’ll hear me say this alot, it’s very important to understand this concept or you will fail).

A quick example would be to start off with a newsletter, grab there interest in a certain topic. In a week, send them an email about a new shoe that you have in stock..how it has shock absorbers..or protects your heels from some type of problem. Now that you have your list of potential prospects who are interested in your shoes, send them updates (be sure not to spam them as there are many US CANSPAM laws you’ll need to abide, read more here). 2nd week, send them a promotional email offering a coupon for 20% off (can be any amount). You have just created the want, and now you are offering the need. The need is the heel problem, the want is your promotional coupon which gives them an incentive to purchase. Simple right? Imagine the number of possibilities to create wants and needs. Its an endless road of opportunities.

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