Email Marketing can help spread the word in Las Vegas and nationally about your business, products and services. More on why email marketing is important. Defined, Email Marketing is direct marketing to a target market you are trying to reach using email. It can contain news, tips, articles, promotions and specials, but it’s main goal it to market.

When you compose an email for marketing purposes, keep these points in mind:

• Create a title for the email that will cause readers to want to open your email. People glance at the first few words of the email title to even decide if they are going to open it or delete it.
• Write interesting headlines. So you’ve gotten the reader to open your email, now give them a reason to read on. Glancing at the headlines should make you want to read the news item.
• Keep main articles concise, interesting and to the point. Get to your point quickly, whether it is an offer of some sort, or any other call to action. People’s attention spans are very short, especially in email.
• Create links back to your website when possible.  Readers will click on the links if they want more information.

There are many places you can source an email list for marketing purposes. Most of the time you must buy a list and the prices and quality of the lists you purchase may vary. A good place to start is by exporting the contacts from your email or address book.  They are most likely current clients, business associates and friends. The first time I exported my address book years ago, I was surprised to end up with a list of over 400 email addresses.  If you would like to purchase a list of email addresses, there are many options available to you. Remember to decide upon a target market for your purchased email list. For example, are you trying to source a list in Las Vegas of Small Business owners on the west side of town or specific to zip codes or is your target a national audience of dog owners let’s say.

Websites you can purchase email marketing lists from:

The process is fairly simple. You need to find an online company, set up an account, pay a monthly fee depending on how big your list is and how many times a month you email your list. They will have instructions on how to import email addresses from your address book or the list you’ve purchased.

Direct marketing has been used since the early 20th century with great success. In fact, the Direct Marketing Association was started in 1917. It is a time-tested method of marketing goods and services to a community. One of the more successful DM campaigns in history was seen from a company known as Publishers Clearing House. PCH was a genius when it came to direct marketing. They had a method that was highly successful and is still a model for the successful today. Below are five of the best DM tips.

1) Test

Each market is different and each consumer is different. Every product is unique and has its own niche in the marketplace. Therefore, it becomes essential to research and design your campaign and then test the market response. If you develop a phrase that garners attention then you would obviously want keep that phrase. If you are not getting the desired results you will obviously want to adjust your strategy.

2) Research

It will do no good to develop an Ad for senior citizens only to have your marketing placed in front of teenagers. Doing demographic research is a key element to placing the right advertising in front of the right people at the right time. This will increase your sales and conversion rate.

3) Internet Direct Marketing

If you plan to direct market on the Internet use a microsite or an email that features a single product only. Nothing is more frustrating for website consumer then to click on an Ad for umbrellas only to arrive at a page featuring raincoats. Umbrellas may be somewhere on the page but if that is not immediately obvious to the consumer you just wasted your pay-per-click dollar. It applies with email marketing too. If the direct email does not contain a link to the specific product, you just wasted your money sending the mail.

4) High Impact Graphics

Boring and flat graphics are unappealing. On the other hand, high impact graphics that use shadows and vibrant colors make the Ad standout and become more appealing. Nobody realizes the value of high impact graphics like the trade booth operator. With thousands of people passing by their both they know the right graphics can quickly get the prospect’s attention and effectively communicate their message.

5) Emphasize your product’s benefits and features

One of the most basics of marketing techniques is giving people a reason to make the purchase. We all like to have good reasons for the decisions that we make. Therefore, this should be one of the first considerations when marketing. Showing a picture of the product and price will only sell to people that have already made their mind up. A true salesperson can take a non-committed customer and turn them into a sale by giving that customer the reasons why their product has the best features and the most benefits for them.

6) Get personal

Ask yourself if you would be more inclined to read a post card or e-mail addressed to you specifically or to a generic title. Financial institutions realized an 11% increase in sales when they marketed directly to a person’s name rather than to address with a generic title like occupant.

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There are so many great marketing websites out on the internet for you to find out the latest marketing news. Keeping informed can only help you professionally and help you promote your local Las Vegas business or company.

Here are a few of my favorite marketing news websites:

Marketing Power – American Marketing Association

Advertising Age – Ad & Marketing Industry News

Direct Marketing News – DMNews

Marketing News – AdWeek

Marketing Articles – MarketingScoop.com

MarketingProfs – Marketing Resources for Marketing Professionals

Marketing and Advertising Articles – inc.com

If you are considering choosing a marketing agency here in Las Vegas it means that you are serious and committed to growing your company. Enlisting the help of a marketing professional can greatly help you market your products and services.

When choosing a marketing agency or consultant here in Las Vegas, there are certain things you should investigate about the potential marketing agency:

• Look for local Las Vegas Marketing Agency. You will be able to meet face to face and it keeps business in our community. Check out my company’s website at www.perkolate.com.
• Review their website. You can learn a lot about a company from reviewing their website closely. Look for the staff’s experience, view who their clients are, ask questions if you call them.
• Can they work within your budget.  Yes, marketing requires a budget, but a good marketing agency should be able to work within your budget, however big or small
• Are they responsive? When you call or email the potential marketing agency, do they return your call or email within one business day?
• Does the marketing agency you are considering have supporting services you might need, like web design, web development and graphic design?

There are many ways of promoting your company’s name on the internet. You could work on good SEO strategies or you could also optimize your website with relevant keywords. All these can be termed at best, “indirect marketing” of your website as it does not directly. By this, what we mean is you do not directly influence the traffic to your website.

Promotion of a website, however, should always have a good mix of indirect and DIRECT marketing efforts – and email marketing is an excellent direct marketing effort to help bring traffic to your local Las Vegas website. With this technique, you can send an email to a group of people (a mailing list) telling them about your product and services offered through your website.

Here is why email marketing important:

• Direct approach with customers – In sending emails, you could literally ask people to click on a link to your website. This is one of the best things for your website because it will help increase the number of hits on your webpage – which also impacts the Search Engine rankings of your webpage. 

• Exposure to new customers – You could purchase a list of new potential target customers and introduce your company’s products and services.  

• It keeps you in your customer’s mindshare – An average print ad does not really make a registered impression in the viewers mind until it is viewed at least 12 times.  By the same token, the repetition of customers seeing an email promoting your company over the course of a year, let’s say, keeps your company and website in their minds and even if they are not in need of your services the moment they read your email newsletter, you keep your name in their mindshare.
   
• Email marketing is very timely – If your business is affected by what’s in the news each day or if something in today’s news headlines has an impact or can provide you with an opportunity to promote your company’s products and services, there is nothing more timely than an HTML email newsletter in your customer’s email box the next morning.
   
• Helps directly drive sales – Your website is offering a special offer or promotion, or you are selling old inventory on your website storefront.  An email newsletter would allow you to instantly promote your offer or draw people to your special product offers.

Email marketing can be best done if you have a good list of email addresses. You could either build your email list from your current contact list or you could buy one. Remember, your email list should be focused to your target market, your target client, if you really want to make your efforts count.