I wanted to write this post to clarify something that I speak with a lot of people about in person. When you are just getting started with bulk emailing, it is very common to think that you are supposed to buy an email list from someone and begin sending out messages. This is a poor way to establish your brand and can damage your profitability in the long term. The better way is to use purely permission based email marketing campaigns.

In this article we will look at the reasons why using direct email opt-in is a better approach, and how you can succeed with permission email marketing.

The simplest and most important reason not to use purchased email lists for your newsletter campaigns is that you are likely to make a bad first impression. And the more well-targeted the email list you buy is, the more crippling a bad first impression can be. You may be giving some of your best potential clients the wrong impression by sending them what they will perceive to be an unsolicited email. After all, when was the last time you purchased anything that had been pitched to you in this way?

A much better way to build your brand is to leverage your existing clients by encouraging word of mouth advertising. This can be as simple as offering bonuses or discounts to clients who refer their friends. You can also run contests, publish new or extremely useful content to attract new traffic, and produce free gifts for new subscribers to your email list. Building up your readership legitimately may seem slower, but you’ll actually find that you conversion rates are much, much higher than they would be if you were sending unsolicited “opt-in” email newsletters.

People are much more receptive to marketing emails when they have actually agreed to receive them. And when your message if well-received, it will not only result in direct sales, but also indirect sales through word-of-mouth.

The easiest way to build up your list naturally is to use permission based email marketing software to add a subscription form to your own web page. The software handles all the grunt-work of managing your list, so that people can subscribe or unsubscribe all by themselves. This also helps you to be in compliance with all the anti-spam laws. Then you can focus your efforts on attracting email list subscribers and converting them into buyers.

Marketing is one of the main areas where small business owners falter. Many business owners wind up taking no action at all, because they either aren’t sure what they should do or they are afraid that their ideas will lead to failure. Email marketing can be an extraordinarily cost-effective solution. It allows marketers to take quick action, assess their results, and improve their campaign’s performance over time, all with very little resource investment.

In this article we’ll look at some of the common problems that plague business owners and managers, and the ways that they can easily be solved through the use of ActiveCampaign’s email marketing solution.

Problem: Difficulty Identifying Target Markets

Too many new business owners get so excited about their vision that they forget to really consider who it is for. And even if you do remember to take the time to try and identify your target market, it can really be a lot easier said than done. Often you’ll find that your highest-converting market segments will be ones you never even considered when you are starting out. And sometimes the markets you push for the hardest turn out to be duds.

Skillful use of email marketing can help you to overcome this problem with an impressive degree of dexterity. The key is to collect the right sorts of information right from the beginning. Put a little time and thought into what types of information will help you to know your customers better. This can pay off big in the long run because you will later be able to compare these personal details to the types of actions that your subscribers are taking.

Problem: Strained Advertising Budget

Email marketing is a natural fit for these poor economic conditions, because the barriers to entrance are very low. All you need to get started is the email software, a $10 shared web hosting account, and maybe an extra email account. That’s it! Compare that to the cost of placing a single (notoriously low conversion) ad in your local newspaper and it’s clear that email marketing presents a fantastic opportunity.

In addition to being a great marketing platform all by itself, the ability to better identify your target markets also makes your more traditional forms of marketing more cost effective. By using your email marketing solution’s statistics to mine the results of your existing online marketing campaign, you will be much better prepared to invest in more costly forms of advertising. You will be able to target the specific demographics that you know already like and want your product.

Problem: Poor Conversion Rates

Different markets work differently, and an effective marketing campaign will often require a lot more trial and error than you wish it would. Email marketing gives you an opportunity to engage your audience over the long term, to gain an understanding of what types of copywriting techniques work well in your particular market.

Some products require a little more finesse and personalization than others, while others are looking for a strong authoritative voice to tell them what to do. An ongoing email campaign allows you to test different methods against one another even during a single mailing, so that you can maximize your results as you go.

We recently discussed the explosion of direct email marketing compared to other types of consumer outreach. We discussed some of the unique advantages of email marketing as a medium, as well as some of the economic reasons for its growth.

One thing we did not explore is the fact that opt in email marketing may be getting more effective over time. This is counter-intuitive to some extent. Most marketers would expect that the more email newsletters and special offers a company sends out, the more likely they are to induce consumer fatigue become invisible to their most important market segments.

In certain ways this is true. You don’t want to send out a deluge of messages only to find that you have desensitized your audience. But even though email marketing may not necessarily gain effectiveness at the individual level, on the whole you can count on the fact that people are becoming more technologically savvy. As this happens, people should become more and more comfortable with online marketing replacing their traditional offline counterparts. More importantly, they should become more responsive to online direct marketing.

According to a new study by the prominent marketing firm Epsilon, this is exactly what is taking place. The study found that the upcoming generation of adults (ages 18-25) are more receptive to opt in email offers than their older peers.

A higher percentage of millennials report that they want to receive certain types of permission-based emails more than once a day including specials/offers from online merchants (34%), entertainment (32%), sports (28%), special offers from traditional (offline) retailers (26%), electronics information (21%), and telecommunications information (21%).

Millennials want to receive offers more often and are willing to stay in programs rather than their elders who are more likely to unsubscribe.

The researchers concluded that using email segmentation to target specific demographics is particularly important in light of this data. While we agree with this conclusion and strongly support the use of highly personalized and well-segmented email marketing campaigns, we also see a message of encouragement for early adopters of internet-based forms of marketing and advertisement.

As the important younger generation of adults continue to fill positions of power and prominence, the companies that have worked to form relationships with them will also prosper. This is an important time to start gaining experience with direct online marketing. The sooner you buy email marketing software and start building up your mailing list, the more entrenched you’ll become in the most valuable segments of your market.