The web is a most versatile and often misused medium for direct marketing. In this email, I will share tips and techniques to make web a major advertising tool for your sales and marketing efforts.

Do you have a website? A Web Newsletter? A mailing list of e-mail addresses for customers? Do you track and test everything? You can use web to get sales in lots of exciting ways which are dependant on technology that’s available at time.

Almost everyone is just too busy running their businesses to take time or to give advertising much thought. This is just crazy.

Whether you budget is £600 or £6000, I can show you how it’s done effectively time after time after time!

So here's what I do when I start working with clients and I would like to offer it to you as a gift now. Have a look at this list of ten great ways of marketing. I guarantee, that nearly all web site owners will not have every one of these simple methods in place right now.

Please pick at least two that you're either not doing, or not doing that well - and MAKE A DECISION to add them to your marketing mix in weeks ahead:

Direct Mail Internet Marketing Email Marketing Advertising Telephone Marketing Direct Sales Strategic Alliances Referral Systems PR Additional Products/Services

We will tackle these in order

Direct Mail

Direct mail is often overused and badly done. It’s got a bad reputation over years, mainly due to spammers, used instead of telephone or by con artists seeking their next victim.

There are a lot of myths and nonsense about mailings. You may want to print this out, because in my continuing efforts to help you reach success – I am about to share secrets of direct mail - I’d be surprised if contents of this mail does not save you thousands of pounds over next 12 months.

By way, if you are totally new to Direct Mail - “It’s anything sent by post, sales letters, electronic mail or brochures etc”

I want to dispel some things about DM to you. “Direct Mail doesn’t work” . This ingenious conclusion is arrived at by fact that most people throw most of mail we get directly in bin - therefore thinking is that it's a waste of money. The truth is that 90 out of 100 people might throw your mailing in bin, but if 5 people look at it, 5 more read it and one of those 5 buys from you - you may well have a highly profitable mailing.

Last week I sent 400 emails to potential clients, and got 37 replies. That’s to say that 37 people actually read my mail, and I got exactly 9 new clients as a result.

Now what would happen if I doubled my mailings next week? I could expect from 800 mails, about 80 replies and maybe 20 sales!

What is responsible email marketing?

A responsible email campaign involves carrying out email marketing by following certain guidelines, right from obtaining email lists to sending out mails. Permission based email marketing or opt-in email marketing can also be termed as responsible email marketing but not to that extent.

Permission based email marketing Vs Responsible email marketing

Permission based email marketing as name suggests involves taking permission from recipients of e-mail before sending them any mails. But there are some basic points to be followed for a permission based email marketing campaign to be termed as responsible email marketing. The following points illustrate as to what permission based email marketing should involve to be considered as responsible email marketing.

Permission based email marketing should involve

1.) Obtaining email addresses by legitimate means like opt-ins 2.) Sending emails with a functional opt-out box 3.) Handing un-subscription requests at-least on a weekly basis 4.) Providing valid contact information and proper signatures with every mail 5.) Sending mails following a specific frequency at all times

Permission based email marketing should not involve

1.) Collecting email lists from email vendors or by using email software programs 2.) Sending mails with porn (without clearly stating so) or potentially damaging materials 3.) Sending emails with false headers that may create obstacles in tracking mail 4.) Sending emails with false IP addresses 5.) Sending mails that do not have a reverse DNS lookup with domain name 6.) Sending emails with misleading subject lines and mail content 7.) Sending mails from a computer that you do not have access to use

So only in-case permission based or opt-in email marketing has these qualities can it be considered as responsible email marketing.

How to collect email lists to carry out responsible email marketing?