Use email marketing to keep in touch with your customers and leads

Stores do it. Business people do it. Who knows -- to paraphrase Cole Porter, maybe even educated fleas do it, too.

Exchange details that is... swap business cards... ask if you want to join their membership program.

So why don't all business websites do it -- by collecting the email addresses of your visitors?

I mean, there is really no good reason not to.

Although spam is annoying to everyone and phishing is downright scary, email is still hugely popular.

We love emailing. And, generally, we love receiving emails from trusted sources... friends, family, and businesses we know and enjoy dealing with.

And from a business perspective, there are a number of benefits of using email to communicate with your customers:

There are two main components involved in using email to market your website:

1. Collecting addresses

When it comes to collecting the emails addresses of your visitors, it's all about reducing some of the anxiety people feel when buying things or giving out personal information online.

I mean, why should I give my name and email address to someone if they haven't given me theirs? So the wording of these offers and opt-in pages is vital to the success of your email gathering activities.

You can use an opt-in page or a form like this...

Or you can add a field on your order and contact forms like this:

2. Keeping in touch with customers and prospects

When someone comes to your site and doesn't contact you or buy something, you don't want them just to disappear, perhaps never to return.

Likewise, it makes sense to try to sell more products to existing customers than constantly try to find new ones.

Automated email (through a company like Constant Contact) offers a number of ways to do this, including:

If you word your emails carefully and press all the right buttons, it can be a very profitable tool for your business.