Outsourced Email Marketing - the benefits

by Startacus Admin

Outsourcing Email Marketing - the benefits

Toby Fischer, previously a Business Owner of a foreign exchange firm is currently working on a new tech project around the mobile wallet and passbook application on the iPhone making loyalty cards, coupons, boarding passes, privilege and membership cards digital. Toby guest writes for Startacus on the benefits of outsourced email marketing.

At the beginning of December last year and only a few months since the sale of my business I thought it would be an ideal time to send out a mail shot to my clients with the main purpose being to thank them for their loyal support, wish them a Happy Christmas and provide an update on the sale. Traditionally in the past I overlooked the opportunity to use an email service provider instead choosing to send rather bland looking emails using some basic tools in our CRM database.

However this year was different as I wanted to leave a lasting impression of professionalism and appreciation to my clients. I researched my options for creating a professional email with Aweber, Campaign Monitor and Mailchimp. Within a short space of time I decided to use www.mailchimp.com as the software was simple to navigate and ideal for a novice email marketer like me.

However at this stage I knew this was only one aspect of sending a mailshot, so set about assessing my options for a graphic designer, a skill that required external expertise. For this part I researched freelancing websites on google and found www.peopleperhour.com a perfect fit for my requirements with designers available by the hour, an ideal solution for my business.

I read various reviews on people selling their services and contacted Jane who agreed to create an html email for £40. All I needed to do was choose a Christmas graphic from www.shutterstock.com for an extra £6 and email her the copy, some images and web links. After some minor tweaks she provided a zip file which I uploaded to Mailchimp along with the subscriber email addresses.

The design and layout of the Mailchimp website is very easy to use and their help section is great for learning about email marketing to ensure your campaign is as effective as possible. I also used the help section to find out the best times and days to send an email to maximise its readership choosing Thursday at 1pm,one of the most likely times a subscriber was going to read my email.

Another benefit of Mailchimp is that it’s completely free for basic users and even provides access to analytics reports, one of the most important aspects of any email campaign. On successfully sending the email, I was able to study stats on the number of subscribers who had read my email (the open rate) with mine 17.2% above the industry average providing a valuable insight into its performance. I could also see which website links received popular clicks which in turn helped me establish what worked amongst all the content and what was less popular.

With Mailchimp, you can also get a breakdown of opens by locations around the world, how many people have unsubscribed and live return on investment (ROI) figures if you are running a google ads campaign. To summarise if you are running a small business and want to send professional looking emails to increase sales, customer loyalty and brand awareness but are on a tight budget outsourcing online may well be the perfect solution for you.

This is a Guest Post for Startacus written by Toby Fischer. Toby is a London based entrepreneur who, having recently sold his foreign exchange firm, is currently working on a new tech project around the mobile wallet and passbook application on the iPhone. You can follow Toby on twitter @FischerToby and visit his website www.tobyfischer.com

Check out the Marketing section of the Startacus toolkit for more handy Marketing tips, articles and links. 

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Published on: 20th February 2013