Efficient small business with mail marketing

Using e-mail marketing can help make the time you spend on your business more efficient. Here are some time-based objectives to consider adopting.

Automate tasks

Some processes are worth the efforts of time-intensive interaction, but others should be automated so you can spend more time selling or recharging your batteries away from your business. If your objective is to automate tasks, you can state your objective in one of the following ways and increase automation with any of these stated objectives in mind:

- Direct prospects and customers to online information.

- Use auto responders for some types of follow-up.

- Schedule several e-mail campaigns to run automatically in advance.

Reduce administrative tasks

Running a business takes a lot of administration, and managing administrative tasks can take time away from selling and interacting with customers and prospects. If your objective is to reduce administrative tasks, you can state your objective in one of the following ways to help you focus on lightening your administrative burden:

- Include a link in every e-mail to an online form that allows customers and prospects to keep their contact information up to date.

- Use e-mail templates to save time designing messages.

- Automate list management and reporting with an E-Mail Service Provider (ESP).

Interact efficiently with customers

Staying connected with customers and making them feel that you care about them can be time-intensive if all your customer interaction happens in person. On the other hand, automating customer interaction can make your customers feel like they aren’t being treated personally. Efficient customer interaction works when you establish a healthy balance between personal interaction and electronic communication. If your objective is to interact efficiently with customers, you can state your objective in one of the following ways and use e-mail to improve your interaction efficiency:

- Ask customers to use surveys and feedback forms.

- Use e-mails to confirm purchases.

- Use e-mail newsletter content to answer common questions.

- Link customers to online resources for support.

Narrowing Your Objectives in Six Steps

Narrowly defined objectives are far more useful than broad-based objectives for making decisions about delivering specific e-mail content. After you define broad-based objectives, the next step is to restate them in more meaningful ways and match them with specific tasks.

You can narrow your broad-based objective by taking six steps:

1. Figure out your ultimate goal.

2. Decide who your customers are.

3. Consider how you want a customer to take action.

4. Communicate your objective.

5. Decide where you want to accomplish your objective.

6. Time your objective.

The following fictitious story walks you through the process of narrowly defining an objective by using the six suggested steps. After you read all the examples and get the basic idea, you can apply these steps to your own objectives or come up with your own set of steps.

Flip and her partner, Flop, decided to open a pancake restaurant because they loved pancakes, people, and the idea of selling 20 cents worth of flour and eggs for $1.25. Flip takes care of the marketing decisions, while Flop is busy in the kitchen. Generally speaking, business is good. Flip wants to make more money so that Flop can hire some extra help and take more time off. At a recent business meeting, Flip and Flop decide that they would like to get more people to eat at their restaurant. Flip agrees to do some thinking and return to the next business meeting with some specific action items for reaching their new objective.