And finally, "On Way Out" factor, which is easiest to spot, yet also easiest to ignore. You may like spending time on constantly optimising and improving your website, but when you reach a certain point, amount of time required to do so outweighs actual results. Anything that you're doing that consumes time with nothing or little to show for it should be avoided. Move on.

The Mature Product

The next point in product's life cycle is Maturity stage. The euphoria of growth stage slows down to a more steady and sedate pace, which can often offer an abundance of opportunities, and can also pose some potential threats. Your competition is likely to be at it's fiercest during this stage, and level and success of your marketing will almost certainly prove to be a critical factor in your product's success. The Maturity stage is quite similar to human adulthood. Massive growth is unlikely, and as long as we accept our age and take care of ourselves, we can reasonably look forward to a long and healthy future, both for us and our products.

Increasing market share during Maturity stage is possible, but will probably not prove to be very cost effective. Right now, product is more likely to be affected by trends in market than at any other time. Assuming that demand remains healthy, then marketing, promotion, advertising and visibility are of utmost importance in order to maintain rather than increase. New packaging can help to rejuvenate a product during Maturity stage, as may new sales methods, or aggressive competition either with product's features or price.

The Happy Pensioner

Finally, Decline stage in Product Life Cycle . The human Golden Years are not death agonies. In same way that most pensioners enjoy many long and happy final years, so too can your product! Round about this time a common error is to misread short-term fluctuations, and misinterpret them as beginning of Decline stage. Although Product Life Cycle is theoretically a smooth and quite elegant curve, reality is that there are constant variations that may be down to any number of external factors. The diagram below demonstrates point, and shows a realistic model against theoretical one.

The Decline stage does not mean that it's time to abandon your product altogether, but that new and appropriate strategies may be in order. For software, this may mean new versions and features, adaptation to newer operating systems and hardware, price reductions, in short, whatever is required to prolong life of product.

Try applying concept of Product Life Cycle model to your application. You should be able to implement quite a few new options and strategies once you have identified current stage in your product`s life cycle, and in market itself. While Product Life Cycle concept is useful, it is equally important to consider external factors, particularly in response to Decline phase. My own favourite way of looking at these external factors is PEST analysis; Political, Economic, Social and Technological. Take all of this information into account before applying any form of life cycle based strategies.

Applying Product Life Cycle to your application will allow you to take a step back from day-to-day running of your business, and to see objectively where you are, and what opportunities and threats lie ahead. You can use information that this technique gives you to ensure that your marketing efforts are not mistimed, inappropriate and ineffective. As Sinatra said – It was a Very Good Year. Do it right. Be seen, be sold.

There is no exact formula for calculating what to spend per email. Companies will spend 25 cents or more per email for highly targeted lists. Ultimately, you need to consider your total cost versus your expected sales conversion rate to determine if a particular targeted email campaign makes sense for your product or service. Start with a small, targeted list to test your email campaign for effectiveness. While initial, smaller list will cost more per email address, it could save you hundreds or thousands of dollars if you find out your campaign message isn’t achieving success rate you need to make your campaign profitable.

The most reputable email marketers spend a considerable amount of time and effort (and money) to ensure that their email lists contain high-quality prospects. Make sure to ask for expected “open” and “response” or “click-through” rates so you can calculate your projected return on investment. If they claim a response rate over 5% or give you a broad range like “100 to 1000 hits per 100,000”, be very skeptical. The only possible exception is for very specifically targeted campaigns.

4. Check provider’s complaint history.

You can check to find if others have had any problems with a company by checking with Better Business Bureau. Providers who are members of BBB will advertise it on their website and are most often your best option. Even with BBB members, you still need to check their complaint history.

Above all, use good business sense. Avoid providers who make claims or offer prices that seem to good be true. Read their satisfaction guarantees in detail. A company may claim satisfaction guaranteed, however, it is your responsibility to ensure that this guarantee exists in writing and that it offers you a proper comfort level with their service. Following these practices will help you choose best provider for your email marketing campaign.