How to Operate a Successful Mailing List
Posted 15th March 2012 at 03:42 PM by mattlaclear
A mailing list can be an important marketing tool to keep customers informed about the latest developments concerning your business. In addition, mailing lists are a great way to provide valuable information to them in the form of instructional articles or coupons; by including such content, you can make your mailing list more useful to customers, which will also make it a more effective marketing device. Mailing lists allow you to connect with your customers and encourage them to remain loyal to your business.
When setting up your mailing list, there are a number of important logistical decisions that must be made. Although those choices may seem relatively unimportant at the moment, such decisions are actually crucial to the ultimate success of your mailing list; once your mailing list is operational, it can be very costly and time-consuming to fix the mistakes that were made at the beginning of the process.
Perhaps the most essential of these questions is the method by which you will operate your mailing list. Traditionally, there was only one way in which a mailing list could operate successfully: physical mail through the postal service. However, over the past decade, the growth in popularity of the Internet has created an entirely new means through which a mailing list can be operated: email.
This new choice has given business owners a lot more freedom with respect to using their mailing lists, but it has also made the whole process more confusing. There are a number of consequences associated with each method that will need to be evaluated before a proper choice can be made. It is important to note, however, that there is not one correct choice for all businesses; the decision to use physical mail or email will depend on your unique circumstances.
Physical mail was the original way to operate a mailing list, and it has a long track record of success with many disparate companies and industries. With physical mail, business owners can use graphic design software and high-quality paper to create professional-looking documents that are unrivaled by other media. Whether it is a catalog, a newsletter or a simple advertisement, a physical document can utilize vibrant colors and glossy photos to appeal to customers in a way that would not be possible through email.
Of course, such benefits do not come without a steep price, and that is ultimately the worst downside of employing physical mail to operate your mailing list: cost. It is expensive to mail things through the post office, and it has only become costlier in recent years as the postal service continues to increase rates in their attempt to reach profitability. Even worse, this method does not scale very well: as more people join your mailing list, your mailing expenses increase as well. In addition, if you decide to mail items more frequently to better connect with your customers, your costs could increase dramatically.
Fortunately, there is a way to avoid all of those expensive mailing costs. By employing email to operating your mailing list, your marginal costs drop to essentially zero. You can add to your mailing list without increasing your costs, and you can mail out items as often as you like without the worries of postage. In terms of cost, email is a far more efficient means of communication.
Unfortunately, email is not a panacea to all of your marketing problems. Because the costs of distribution are so low, many people have switched to email in order to operate their mailing lists. As well, spammers have taken advantage of the situation to inundate people with useless and potentially harmful emails.
This has caused many people to be wary of all non-personal emails, and with the rise of sophisticated spam filters, there is the risk that many of your emails will never even make it to your customers. As such, it has become very difficult to differentiate yourself through email marketing, which means that you will have to work hard to make sure your emails get noticed by your customers.
It should be clear by now that there are positives and negatives to both methods of operation. However, budgetary considerations will likely be the deciding factor in such decisions. For small businesses, mailing costs can reduce profits considerably, a risky proposition given the state of the economy. Many large corporations are also switching their marketing efforts from physical mail to email in order to reduce their costs. Unless you have a compelling reason to use physical mail in your own marketing material, you should seriously considering using email as your preferred method for operating mailing lists.
When setting up your mailing list, there are a number of important logistical decisions that must be made. Although those choices may seem relatively unimportant at the moment, such decisions are actually crucial to the ultimate success of your mailing list; once your mailing list is operational, it can be very costly and time-consuming to fix the mistakes that were made at the beginning of the process.
Perhaps the most essential of these questions is the method by which you will operate your mailing list. Traditionally, there was only one way in which a mailing list could operate successfully: physical mail through the postal service. However, over the past decade, the growth in popularity of the Internet has created an entirely new means through which a mailing list can be operated: email.
This new choice has given business owners a lot more freedom with respect to using their mailing lists, but it has also made the whole process more confusing. There are a number of consequences associated with each method that will need to be evaluated before a proper choice can be made. It is important to note, however, that there is not one correct choice for all businesses; the decision to use physical mail or email will depend on your unique circumstances.
Physical mail was the original way to operate a mailing list, and it has a long track record of success with many disparate companies and industries. With physical mail, business owners can use graphic design software and high-quality paper to create professional-looking documents that are unrivaled by other media. Whether it is a catalog, a newsletter or a simple advertisement, a physical document can utilize vibrant colors and glossy photos to appeal to customers in a way that would not be possible through email.
Of course, such benefits do not come without a steep price, and that is ultimately the worst downside of employing physical mail to operate your mailing list: cost. It is expensive to mail things through the post office, and it has only become costlier in recent years as the postal service continues to increase rates in their attempt to reach profitability. Even worse, this method does not scale very well: as more people join your mailing list, your mailing expenses increase as well. In addition, if you decide to mail items more frequently to better connect with your customers, your costs could increase dramatically.
Fortunately, there is a way to avoid all of those expensive mailing costs. By employing email to operating your mailing list, your marginal costs drop to essentially zero. You can add to your mailing list without increasing your costs, and you can mail out items as often as you like without the worries of postage. In terms of cost, email is a far more efficient means of communication.
Unfortunately, email is not a panacea to all of your marketing problems. Because the costs of distribution are so low, many people have switched to email in order to operate their mailing lists. As well, spammers have taken advantage of the situation to inundate people with useless and potentially harmful emails.
This has caused many people to be wary of all non-personal emails, and with the rise of sophisticated spam filters, there is the risk that many of your emails will never even make it to your customers. As such, it has become very difficult to differentiate yourself through email marketing, which means that you will have to work hard to make sure your emails get noticed by your customers.
It should be clear by now that there are positives and negatives to both methods of operation. However, budgetary considerations will likely be the deciding factor in such decisions. For small businesses, mailing costs can reduce profits considerably, a risky proposition given the state of the economy. Many large corporations are also switching their marketing efforts from physical mail to email in order to reduce their costs. Unless you have a compelling reason to use physical mail in your own marketing material, you should seriously considering using email as your preferred method for operating mailing lists.
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