Emails have several advantages over direct mail. You can tell that someone has opened them; you can tell if that email is no longer valid; the communication is instant and it's free!

What's the law about this?

Generally speaking you need to be careful about spamming people - in other words sending them communication that they don't want or haven't asked for. That's easy when they're already your customers - of course you can communicate with them, but what about people who aren't your customers? I would say contacting people who aren't your customers once or twice is fine. Make sure that you have an unsubscribe option at the bottom of the email - you know, "If you no longer want to receive mail from us, click here to unsubscribe".

Hou can you make email campaigns work for you?

Let's face it, no one likes purely promotional emails - you'd much rather read something that was of interest to you. Last thing you want is someone deleting your email without even reading it. So, the email you send out should be designed to test out whether someone receiving it is 'interested' in your products or services. Ideally, this should be in a series of stages i.e. stage 1 could be requesting a free report (email sent to everyone); stage 2 could be asking them to participate in a free workshop (email sent only to people who have asked for free report); stage 3 could be an offer of a free meeting to discuss your products and services (sent only to people who have attended workshop).

Sending emails in stages as outlined above tests how interested people are at each stage meaning that at stage 3 or 4, you're only communicating with people who are really interested in what you do.

Who should I send my email campaign to?

Ideally you should send your emails out to a list of your target customers. If you don't have a list already, you could buy one - there are a number of list providers around. Or you could start to build a list by offering your target customers a free tips sheet if they give you their contact details. For instance, if you're targeting mothers, you might want to give a free talk at a mothers and toddlers group and offer to send them your free tips if they give you their email address. Once you've got their contact details, you've started building your list.

Always go for quality over quantity though - far better to have 10 people who really are your target customer than 300 people who aren't.

How do I start?

Get your list together or start building it, write your email and press send. Don't forget to check your email through for spelling and grammar before you let it go. And if at all possible, Blind Copy everyone so that all the other emails can't be seen (press the TO box on your email and you'll see the BCC option).

Remember to tick the Read Receipt box so that you know who's read your email (or at least opened it anyway) and you can also tick the Delivery Receipt box so that you know your email has been delivered.

You should aim to test and measure your campaign so you know whether or not it's worked. The key things you want to record are:

The number of emails on your list

1) The number of emails that were delivered
2) The number of emails that have bounced
3) The number of emails that were read
4) The number of unsubscribe requests
5) The number who request what you're offering

Monitoring these checks will give you a pretty good idea of whether or not your email campaign has worked for you.

Helen Dowling from http://www.Exceptionalthinking.co.uk is a specialist in niche marketing and business plans.