The ease and convenience of communicating by email has turned the medium into a popular marketing channel. Most businesses want, (or need), the ability to send out bulk emails to their existing (and potential) customers at some point.
Bulk email marketing sometimes has a bad reputation. When people think of bulk emails, they tend to think of spam. Unsolicited email advertisements that clog up your in-box, or, worse, deliver something malicious. But there are plenty of perfectly legitimate reasons to send out bulk emails as well.
You might need to communicate important information to your clients for example, or you might want to let them know about your latest special, or a new product or service. You might want to send out a regular newsletter, just to keep in contact with your client base.
Whatever you need it for, there are a couple of different options available to you.
Do It Yourself Bulk Email
One option is to do it yourself. If you’ve got the time and the resources, and a little bit of know-how, it’s pretty easy to do it yourself. There’s always the good old fashioned “mail merge” option, that uses your own mail account to send a predefined email to a mailing list.
Of course, anti-spam procedures can interfere with this…your server might not let you send too many mails at once, for example. And it can put a heavy load on your system when you’re sending them out.
Another good option is a third-party mailing service, where you do the work, but it all happens out of their servers and interface.
Personally, we use Graphic Mail, a local South African service that’s very efficient. You can set up predefined templates, or design your own, and use them to send mails to entire mailing lists. They also offer pretty good reporting and stats, and have a variety of tools available, from trigger mails to list segments and split-testing options.
They’re also very affordable, so if you’re going to be sending a lot of mails yourself, this is an excellent service.
3rd Party Bulk Emailing
If you don’t have the time, the people, or the inclination to do it yourself, another viable option is to contract a third party to handle your bulk emailing. With these type of deals, you generally provide the content of the mail, and the mailing list, and the 3rd party takes care of everything else.
If this option sounds appealing, and you’re looking for somebody to do most of the hard work for you, then we recommend Certech Email Marketing, another local firm that specialises in managing bulk email and SMS marketing communications.
The Importance Of Keeping In Contact
Whichever option you go for, remember that keeping in touch with your clients, both present and potential, is an important part of your customer relations. Sometimes, it’s a good thing to remind them that you’re there, and what you can do for them.
They might not need you today, but you want to make sure that when they do need you, it’s you they think of.