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Title: Email Marketing: A Simple, Free and Overlooked Way to Market Your Business
Word Count: 688
Author: Sandra P. Martini
Email: smartini@thebostonvirtualsolution.com
Article URL: http://www.submityourarticle.com/articles/easypublish.php?art_id=10120

The article is preformatted to 60CPL.



Email Marketing: A Simple, Free and Overlooked Way to Market Your Business
Email.  We use it for everything from chatting with our
friends and family to corresponding with clients and
sending business inquiries to helping others in online
discussion forums.  It's arguably become *the* mode of
modern-day communication - more so than the telephone,
certainly more so than letter writing.

There's a limited amount of real estate in every email that
you send.  How you use it determines, in part, how
effective your emails are and how well you are marketing
yourself.  Given how often emails are forwarded around, a
well-crafted email signature can get you calls/emails from
prospects you never knew even existed, new ezine
subscribers and, in the best cases, a new client - this is
a great return on free marketing.

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1. Keep it *plain*.

There is such a variety of email programs and capabilities
out there --  Outlook, Eudora, AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, gmail,
etc. - that you should use plain text in your email
signature to insure that everyone can read it.

In addition to my text address, I use a border to separate
the email address from the body of the email.  You can use
basic symbols which separate your signature without
distracting from it.  In my case, I use a line of dashes to
separate the body of my email from my email signature.

2. Make it automatic.

Most email programs today will allow you to set up a
default email signature which will automatically append the
end of every email you send.  In Outlook, you can even set
up a variety of signatures depending on which email account
you are using and you can alter the address based on
whether you are initiating and email versus replying to one.

Setting up an automatic email signature will save you a lot
of typing in addition to insuring that your signature
remains consistent.

3. Make it complete.

I highly recommend that you include either your email
address or your URL (assuming you have a website) in your
email signature.  You want to make it easy for people to
find you.

Someone receiving your email for the first time may not
wish to pick up the phone and call you - they may want to
learn a bit about you first.  When possible, include your
email address in such a way that it's clickable no matter
the email account that opens it.  You do this by writing
mailto:yourname@yourdomainname.  Having the "mailto" at the
beginning of your email address makes it a "clickable" link.

Some discussion groups don't allow you to include your
email address in your email signature.  But if you have a
website, you can direct readers there by including your URL
as a clickable link.  You do this by typing
http://www.yourURL.  Adding the "http://" to the beginning
of your URL makes it a clickable link for your readers -
even in a plain text email.

4. Keep it short.

Keep your signature to no more than 5 lines - more than
that and your signature becomes overwhelming and will turn
off readers.

Many online discussion groups/forums will limit the number
of lines that your signature can be so be sure to check out
the guidelines before you post.  As a result, I use three
variations of my signature: one for online discussion
groups, one for existing clients and one for everyone else.

5. Give 'em a reason and a gift.

Do you want subscribers for your ezine?  Do you want people
to visit your website?  What is the "call to action" of
your email signature?

You want to give your email readers a reason to go to your
website or sign up for your ezine or pick up the phone and
call you by including an invitation in your email
signature.  You could offer them a F*REE special report, an
e-course or a F*REE teleseminar - all for the "price" of
heeding your signature's call to action.

Your email signature block is a small, yet very valuable
piece of marketing real estate.  You want to give as much
thought to constructing it as you do the rest of your
marketing materials.


About the Author:

Online Business Manager & Entrepreneur, Sandra Martini
teaches small business owners how to create more success in
their business while maintaining their sanity and having
fun.  Sandra's coaching programs are available via
teleconferencing, emails and telephone calls.  For more
information and to receive the FREE special report, "7
Wealth-Building Secrets of Successful Entrepreneurs", go to
http://www.Online-Biz-Coach.com .

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