Should I Use Email Marketing For My Business?

The other day I got a call from a friend of mine asking whether or not he should be using email marketing for his business, he's a recruiter.  I told him heck yes!!

Sending Bulk Email Has a Slimy Feeling to It!

I understand that most people have a negative feeling regarding email, and I get why they feel this way however, when done right you can build a great client base that will keep on returning to your site time after time to read your content.  When you build a list in a way that customers or propects are looking forward to receiving your email, they will love to hear from you!

Additionally, bulding an email list is one of the most profitable things that you can do for your company, think of it as an asset to your company!  The reason that I say this is because that is EXACTLY what it is!

Here's what I told my recruiter friend:

I get an email from Monster.com every week that tells me a list of jobs that are open in my area every week.  Not that I'm looking for new jobs but I read every deatil of it from top to bottom.  Dice.com has a similar feature but they take it one step further, lately I've been getting emails from one of their staff members letting me know that there is a job opening that I'm qualified for along with a link to more about the opening. 

Heck yes you should be creating an electronic email list!

If nothing else he should be sending out an online newsletter to his prospects with some good information on the state of the job market in the region, tips for getting hired, what is a reasonable salary to expect in the market, etc.  Anything that he can do to keep his prospects coming back to their site.

In order to understand this further you have to think like an 'information consumer' would think would think.

Since a persons employment status can have a tendency to change at certain times throughout the course of our life, there's a good chance that one of his prospects doesn't need a new job today, but may need one six months down the road.  If they keep hearing from the company weekly or every other week, who do you think they are going to call when they are in need of a job?

Answer: The one that is on their mind!

Who is on their mind?

Answer: The one that has been communicating with them for the last six months.

How to Email Market Your Business, and How Not to Market Your Business

In this case I would send out a weekly online newsletter to my list that had a few different things in it.

First and foremost I would include in that email a list of jobs that I am trying to fill for my customers like "10 Hot Jobs" or something similar, with links to the positions on my site.

Secondly, I would use some snippets of posts that I put on my blog as content for the newsletter (you do have a blog don't you?  Hint: you're reading this on my blog).  Just put in the title and maybe 50-100 words of text from the article that you are linking to.  Link the title of the snippet to the actual URL of the post on your blog.  You should have enough relevant content that you have generated over the week on your blog already.  Repeat the process with 2 or 3 snippets from your blog to bulk it up a bit and then send it off to your prospects.

It doesn't take that much time to do, and it keeps your prospects connected to the news in your market.

If you are going to send out offer after offer with nothing of substance other than 'buy this' 'buy that' you might as well not start this process because all that you will do is piss off your list.

I subscribe and unsubscribe to lists all of the time, the ones that I kick to the curb on a regular basis are the ones that do nothing but send me offers.  I don't mind buying things, trust me on that, but what motivated me to join a list in the first place was to receive information!  This kind of marketing is what makes people feel dirty, avoid it at all costs!

Using the tips above you will be well on your way to connecting with the people that you want to be in front of the most!

BY THE WAY:  You can subscribe to our friendly, warm and fuzzy, newsletter over there in the sidebar >>>> :-)