Even in an age of spam mail and anti-spam software, email continues to be one of the most effective methods of not only communicating with current and prospective clients, but marketing to them as well.

The benefits of email marketing is clear:

* Email is almost immediate. A recent study showed that more than 90% of messages reach their destination in five minutes or less. Five percent gets there within 30 minutes and the remaining is there in less than 12 hours. No other medium can reach clients as quickly or widely as email.

* It’s reliable. 95% of all mail sent reaches the recipient.

* Email has the highest Return on Investment (ROI) than any other medium, according to the Direct Marketing Association. Distribution costs are almost non-existent and you are able to track results in real time, knowing the number of recipients that opened the message and clicked on the links.

* You can quickly discover incorrect addresses, update your mailing list on the fly and resend your email. Try that with direct mail…

As noted earlier, even the best conceived product or service in the world wouldn’t stay on the market unless the customers beat a path to your door. And every customer counts.

In fact, selling to an existing client is far less expensive than acquiring a new one. Ten to twelve times less. Once you have a buyer, do everything you can to get them to buy from you again.

The best way to do this is to keep your business out there in front of them. We’ve already outlined some good strategies for doing this, including newsletters, blogs, forums and really solid content. Now use email to let them know these things are there for them, along with new products, exciting sales, fresh ideas and solutions that solve their everyday problems.

When you add email to your marketing mix, you’ll find that you’ll spend less time managing customer relationships. In fact, recent surveys show that email is the preferred method for receiving information.

Email Marketing Resources:

1.  Building A Solid List – Whether you paid for search engine placement, received an unsolicited order from a new customer, met someone at a tradeshow or mailed out a postcard to prospects, be sure to get the person’s email address right up front.

2.  Writing Email That Gets Read – Now that you have a good list, you need to send good content.

3.  Email Writing Tips – Here are some more tips for writing effective emails.

4.  Email Marketing Tips – Here are some more Email Marketing Tips.

5.  Email Success – Here are some further tips for email success.

6.  Avoid Spam Filters – Of course, even the best written email is pointless if spam filters decide your email is spam and relegate your message to the Junk folder, or worse, blacklists you from sending any further emails, even ones that aren’t for marketing purposes.

7.  How to Increase Income through Emails – As stated earlier, it’s vital to the success of your marketing that you keep your name out in front of the customer.