The Internet is believed to be faster, better, cheaper, and easier to conduct surveys than using more traditional telephone or mail methods. You eliminate the need for extensive paper work and man hours.
No matter how striking your website is, if your website developer doesnt make the direction-finding system user-friendly, youll be undetectable to the search engines. Whether you like it or not your web site will remain virtually invisible to the bulk of the internet online businesses unless you take the appropriate steps to draw interest to it.
If you plan to do serious marketing via e-mail youll need to put in some first class tools. Not all people respond well to online surveys and to email web marketing. They see this as a nuisance and if you dont package it well, theyll probably just block all your efforts.
E-Mail Client Programs.
The first type of e-mail program you need is a fundamental e-mail client. Settling for the built-in program included with your web browser is not advisable. One of the essentials is the classification of filters that will arrange e-mails by keywords as it comes to your site.
By creating a group, you can send out multiple e-mail messages and files to individuals or just by pasting multiple addresses into the To: field, but its a mark for beginners, since each one of the recipients see the e-mail addresses of all the other recipients, which can be awkward to look at, and subjects your links to spamming from others.
When pasted into the Cc: field, it has the same purpose and works the same. But when you put the e-mail addresses into the Bcc: field (which means blind carbon copy) nobody can be able to see the addresses of the recipients. If you have little list of contacts to e-mail to, this will be acceptable.
Here are some of the most excellent programs available:
Eudora Pro
Eudora Pro (http://www.eudora.com/) is the father of brilliant e-mail handling programs. Its use of filters and stationery gives you permission to send automated responses to e-mails containing keywords, such as those you set up with forms-to-email systems. For example, one option a customer might choose and include the keyword birdbath which would automatically trigger Eudora to send an e-mail reply about your Electronic Birdbath product. Eudoras filters are very powerful and reliable, but its contact information section is pretty rough, and difficult to put up in a database arrangement that allows you to send personalized e-mail to contacts.
Outlook 98 and 2000
Microsoft Outlook 98/2000 (http://www.microsoft.com/outlook/) is an outstanding e-mail program. Its filters are not as strong and reliable as Eudoras, but the way it integrates e-mail with contact information, e-mail addresses, categorization, journals, calendaring, etc. make it supreme for people-intensive small businesses. One weakness of Outlook 98 is that not all fields of its contact information can be used in an e-mail combine operation.
Pegasus Mail
Pegasus Mail (http://www.pegasus.usa.com/) by David Harris is a high quality, multi-featured freeware e-mail program adored by users and its highly recommended.
Revnet Mail King
Revents mail king (http://www.mailking.com/wmt) is a well program that reads data from MS Access or Excel files (as well as several other familiar formats), and allows you to merge that data into an e-mail message. It has some moderately sophisticated filters to help you select suitable recipients.
Arial Campaign
Arial Software Campaign (http://www.arialsoftware.com/wmt) has been around for several years. The most recent versions of this software run on Windows 95+ and Windows NT platforms. Campaign provides all the features of Mail King, and works without difficulty with MS Access and other common databases, but also allows scheduling of e-mail messages to go out a certain number of days after a client has taken a certain action.
Mail loop
Mail loop (http://marketingtips.com/mailloop/t.x/15267/) is an extremely flexible program. It works alongside your current e-mail client program to pre-filter e-mail, extract forms-generated data from e-mail messages, strip e-mail addresses from any kind of file, merge your database into personalized e-mail messages, offer auto responder-like responses, host newsletters, and process remove requests from those who want you to be detached from any of your lists.
List server Programs
E-mail merge programs run on your desktop, and depend upon the rate of your connection to the Internet. List server programs, on the other hand, reside on web hosting service computers with a direct connection to the Internet, so they can pump out e-mails extremely fast. All include automatic subscribe and unsubscribe features, and allow a variety of lists, one-way mailings such as newsletters, and discussion lists, both moderated and unmoderated.
Jay Peterson writer, web designer. is the easiest do-it-yourself website builder on the web No programming or design skill required. Get your small business online in just 5 minutes with loaded with 30+ business features.
I am a huge fan of email. In fact, if you do business with me the bulk of our communication will not be through the telephone, but via email. Email is quick. Email is convenient. Email takes less time than long-winded telephone conversations. Most importantly, email gives me an electronic record of my communications with clients, employees, partners, and vendors; which makes it easy for me to refresh my quickly-aging memory by easily referring back to our electronic conversations.
As someone who receives and sends a couple hundred emails a day I have to tell you that I am constantly amazed at how poorly written and unprofessional most business emails are. I receive emails every day from fellow entrepreneurs that dont even contain full sentences. They are often rife with spelling and grammatical errors or typed in all capital letters, and sometimes, are virtually illiterate.
One email I recently received from someone trying to sell me an expensive piece of equipment actually read, tom-- what you think -- ready to buy First off, the name is Tim and secondly, what I think is: I will take my business elsewhere. Thank you, drive through.
Why should you worry about how your emails are reviewed by their recipients Because in business, you are constantly being judged by your customers, your employees, your investors, your partners, and your peers. If your emails give the impression that you dont put much thought into the composing of the message or that youre too busy to be bothered or that you are a total idiot who cant even use a spell checker, what do you think that says to the person on the other end
Email is quickly becoming the business correspondence medium of choice for the reasons I covered above, and if you dont take the time to learn how to effectively use email in a professional manner, it will come back to haunt you.
There are rules that should be followed when sending business emails. The website Email Replies gives 32 tips for email etiquette. Culling from that list and adding a few of my own, here are Tims Top 10 Rules of Email Etiquette that every entrepreneur, executive, and employee should follow.
Make It Short And Sweet
An email isnt a letter from camp, so dont drone on any longer than necessary. Keep in mind that reading an email on a computer screen is harder than reading printed communications, so keep it brief and to the point. Use Proper Spelling, Grammar & Punctuation
This is not only important because improper spelling, grammar and punctuation give a bad impression of you and your company, it is also important to make sure your message is not misconstrued. Emails with improper punctuation (a comma and a period every now and then would be nice) are difficult to read and can sometimes even change the meaning of the message. And, if your email program has a spell checker do everyone a favor and use it. Include a Signature Block In Every Email
A signature block in an email is the same as the signature block you would use to end a letter. You should include your name, title, company name and address, telephone number, email address and website address. Reply Quickly
This is my number one pet peeve: people who take forever to answer email. Fast response is especially important if the email is from a customer or contains time-sensitive information. Customers send an email because they wish to receive a quick response. If they did not want a quick response they would send a letter or a fax or talk to your voicemail. Each email should be replied to within at least 24-hours, and preferably within the same working day. If the email cant be answered in full immediately you should at least send a reply saying that you have received their email and that you will get back to them ASAP. Read Every Email Before You Send It
Theres no better way to embarrass yourself than through a hastily sent email. A lot of people dont even bother to read an email before they send it out, as evidenced by the many spelling and grammatical errors most emails contain. Apart from this, reading your email through the eyes of the recipient will help you send a more effective message and avoid misunderstandings and inappropriate comments. Do Not Discuss Confidential Information
Sending an email is like sending a postcard. Once it leaves your computer, the end user can do whatever they want with it, so if you do not want a documented record of your comments or the information shared with others, dont send it. Moreover, never make any libelous, sexist or racially discriminating comments in emails, even if they are meant to be a joke. There have been court cases where email correspondence was used as evidence. Thats a road you do not want to go down. Dont Use ALL CAPS
In email terms, IF YOU WRITE IN CAPITAL LETTERS IT SEEMS AS IF YOU ARE SHOUTING, so please tone it down. ALL CAPS are hard to read and can trigger an angry reply if the recipient mistakes the intention of your email. Emails should be written in standard sentence style. Turn the Caps Lock off and back away from the keyboard. Avoid Abbreviations and Emoticons
In business emails, try not to use abbreviations such as BTW (by the way) and LOL (laugh out loud). The recipient might not be aware of the meanings of the abbreviations and in business emails these are generally not appropriate. The same goes for emoticons, such as the smiley :-) and his depressed pal :-( . If you are not sure whether your recipient knows what an acronym means, it is better not to use it. Dont Use Backgrounds or Silly Graphics
I actually received an email from a fellow entrepreneur that had an animated smiley face waving a gloved hand in his signature block. If the email had come from Walt Disney I wouldnt have been shocked. Coming from a small technology company, I had to wince. Not much to smile about there. Remember That Email Is A Formal Business Communication
You wouldnt send a formal letter to a customer that lacked a salutation, a well-thought out body of text, and a signature. You should use email in the same manner. A proper business email should be structured like a short letter. It should have a salutation, the body of the message, a sign off, and a signature. Next time well discuss email issues that should be a concern to larger companies. If your company doesnt have a formal email policy, you should. Tune in next week to find out why.
Heres to your success,
Tim Knox
Entrepreneur, Author, Speaker
Tim Knox is a nationally-known small business expert who writes and speaks frequently on the topic. For more information or to contact Tim please visit one of his sites below.