Use HTML To Enhance The “Sales Pitch”
Email clients have become more and more complex over the years, and as a result, most of them now include the ability to display HTML formatted messages as opposed to plain text formatted messages. HTML formatted messages allow marketers to design email with almost any HTML element (font, links, character formatting, embedded images, table elements, and more).
For security reasons, some online users prefer text to HTML email – especially since HTML can run harmful scripts and applets downloaded from the Internet. To accommodate these differing preferences, marketers should (1) never send HTML messages without asking for permission first, and (2) create two versions and allow each recipient to choose which version to read: HTML or text.
The most common HTML elements displayed in email are links, such as:
- <A HREF=”http://…”> – links to another document on the web.
- <A HREF=”ftp://…”> – links to an ftp site.
- <A HREF=”gopher://…”> – links to a gopher server.
- <A HREF=”mailto:…”> – loads up Internet mail.
- <A HREF=”news:…”> – links to a newsgroup.
- <A HREF=”telnet://…”> – initiates a telnet session.
- <A HREF=”wais://…”> – links to a specified WAIS server.
Knowledge of HTML coding isn’t always necessary to enrich a marketer’s sales pitch, as more and more email clients include HTML formatting as part of their editing functions. Marketers with word processing and character formatting experience, for example, can easily use HTML editing functions in email – which with creative thought, provides a way to process form submissions, serve newsletter subscriptions, or accept poll votes right from a reader’s inbox.
Send Marketing Materials As Emailed Faxes
Through online faxing services, marketers can send and receive faxes attached to email messages. The types of documents that can be faxed include PDF documents, Microsoft documents, and some types of graphics. Using an email client capable of sending and receiving faxes, marketers can attach document and send it to a fax number. Its recipient will receive the document through a fax machine.
Faxes are useful to marketers who may need to secure a handwritten signature from prospects, for instance, before performing a survey. Or perhaps a marketer needs to send a few flyers to a coworker. By faxing these flyers as Microsoft Word documents, the coworker can receive the document as a fax, print them, and then distribute them.
Microsoft Outlook is an example email client capable of sending faxes, however unlike Microsoft Outlook, eFax – another internet~faxing~service – is free. Using eFax, an email marketer can receive up to 200 faxes for at no cost (sent to a local or a toll-free number), or send faxes (using email) at $0.10 per page.
Increase Response Rates With Email Mail Merges
Mail merge is a function that allows marketers to insert many fields of data into a single document. It is especially convenient for marketers who need to send different people customized information based on a single template.
Consisting of two files – a database and a template – mail merge pulls data from the records of a database, and inserts the content of those records into designated areas of the template. The template acts as the basic content of an email message, while the database acts as specific content of an email message. When both are combined (merged), the result is a basic message customized with specific data.
Database records may contain any number and type of specifics, such as prospect name, email address, location, phone number, date, etc. And mail merges may be used to create any type of message, such as personalized thank you notes, sampling appointments, seminar invitations, and more. Merged mail can, for example, thank each location-specific person for completing a recent survey within a span of three months.
Not only do mail merges save marketers the time and energy required to personalize each message, they also give email recipients the impression that their mail was created specifically for them. And sending email that appears individual and personal – rather than “canned” – is proven to increase response rates.
External Resources:
1. Email Marketing for Complex Sales Cycles
2. The Truth About Email Marketing
3. The Complete Guide to E-mail Marketing
