E-mail Marketing can be anything from HTML emails sent from outlook to signature files or even bespoke e-mail transmission software. If you have read this far and are thinking "eh?" then read on and I will explain all you need to know about e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.

There are two types of email marketing, the nasty spammy stuff that everyone hates, and the good stuff that you actually want, and let’s be honest, we have all signed up for a few, so it can't all be spam.

A good email newsletter can be an effective way of keeping your company and its products in front of your clients, but a bad one can look cheap, ill-planned and can make your valuable requested enewsletter look like spam.

So what is the solution? You have a few options, depending on your intentions, budget and size of audience.

• Tailored email templates for you to drop content into, carrying your corporate identity, or at the very least logo, and contact details
• A more involved email newsletter design, these will have a purpose built graphic template and carry either full articles, or intros to articles with the full articles housed elsewhere, either on your website, or on a blog (again with your branding) these can be ideal as special offers broadcasts, new product notification etc. However if you are sending a lot out (more than a hundred or so) then manually sending and up keep of the addresses and subscription details can be a big job
• For a bigger job, and a serious entry into the realms of email marketing, you can have a full distribution system. This has many components that can be added as needed, but an overview of the full system is below.
  • A data base of subscribers, which people can subscribe to (typically via links on your websites, or emails) and unsubscribe from automatically. It can also handle and flag 'bounce back' emails which didn't get to their destination.
  • A CMS (Content Management System) which allows you to add content and images into bespoke templates and hosts them. The system then lets you chose articles 'number 1, 2, 5 and 7' for example. It then generates an email newsletter with intros of each page and links to the full article which is hosted with your website and can be linked to from the site as an online resource.
  • The system then sends the enewsletter to the designated groups or lists in the current database
  • The system can also track readership so you can tell which people read which article, and how many times. Allowing you to follow up with specialised marketing to the right people.
• This full version of the system can handle multiple groups of subscribers, send emails at pre-set times, and generate real time reports to users to check of sending, delivery, opening, reading and resubscribing rates.
• This solution allows a marketing department to follow potential clients and plan accordingly. Imagine having a list of 500 people who you know read the article/press release on a new product more than 4 times within 24 hours of receiving the email... imagine what that kind of information would be worth for your field sales team!
• This is exactly the kind of information that you could have at your fingertips with this system. You could have total control over a global emarketing campaign from your desktop.
• Talk to Tandem Solutions to find the best Email marketing solution for your business.

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