Building Your Business with Personalized Email

Saatchi & Saatchi the world's leading advertising agency have a magic system for generating new business which they have been using for the past 20 years.

It's a simple system ... they make sure they contact each of their customers at least once every three months.

They have found that contact on a three monthly basis builds lasting relationships whereas more than three months exposes customers to competitors.

Building lasting relationships means much more than just sending a bland "Hello Everyone" type email message.

What are you more likely to read ... an email which says "Special Offer" or one containing your name from someone you know? We give special attention to personal emails and invariable read them.

Let's say you regularly shop at a clothing store in your town and you get to know and enjoy the service provided by the owners. If you receive a personalized email from the store advising you that they have a special sale on a brand of business shirt that you regularly buy are you likely to read it? Absolutely ... and you'll probably respond to the offer as well.

If you plan to make a special offer to your clients then the message should definitely be personalized. Seth Godin, Vice President of Direct Marketing, for Yahoo calls this "Permission Marketing".

We all get flooded with "Interruption Marketing" via the television and radio. Advertisements via broadcast media are not personalized and the advertisers are joyful if they get a 0.01% hit rate.

Spam email is the Internet version of "Interruption Marketing". If everyone marketed in this way then the Internet would cease to exist.

Your website and your marketing strategy should be 100% focused on signing up strangers to give you permission to market to them. I've signed up 20,000 people in this way by offering free information.

Once you have permission then you need to:

1. Contact them at least once every three months, and
2. Personalize the messages that you send to them.

Personalization becomes very difficult if you have to individually compose each message. Fortunately technology and the Internet makes it possible to do "mail-merge". This is where you type one message and it is then merged with a database that adds the name of the recipient plus any other relevant information. Each recipient receives a message that looks like it has just been written for them.

You can purchase software that does this but my preference has always been to use a browser-enabled system (e.g. http://www.zapperdapper.com) that enables me to send personalized messages to my customers, contacts and friends from any Internet connection in the world.

If you have not tried personalized email in your marketing then you're in for a pleasant surprise.

As Seth Godin says: "The Internet is the greatest direct marketing medium ever invented" ... and I would add ... especially when the messages are personalized.

This article has been made available by John Townsend an Internet Marketing Consultant. John can be contacted at 61 2 66537121 or via Email at jt@gday-mate.com.