As a small business owner, you’re always looking for ways to close more sales and grow your business. And by now you’ve either adopted email marketing, or you will shortly. After all, email marketing is easy, fast, inexpensive, and, in most cases, yields the highest ROI. Which is great for you – the small business owner.

However…before you send another email, consider this: the majority of entrepreneurs have no idea how to use email marketing effectively. And they’re losing out on thousands, even millions of dollars because of it.

You see, the truth is most small business owners will spend their time worrying about things like:

• What subject lines get the best open rates?

• Are there SPAM words I should avoid?

• How long should my email be?

• When is the best time of day to send my email?

And so on…

A complete list could fill the entire page. But when it comes right down to it, there is a bigger picture here that most business owners are missing. While they’re busy debating subject lines, deciding how to sign their emails, and rejoicing over 1 – 2% increased response rates, other, more important issues are neglected.

And that’s when:

• A promotional email is sent to an existing customer-who already made the purchase at full price.

• A man receives an email inviting him to a Woman’s Stress Management Course

• A prospect signs up to be on a mailing list then doesn’t hear anything from the company for 3 or 4 months

• An email marketer gets more SPAM complaints than “click-throughs”

Having never learned effective email marketing strategies, small business owners are either oblivious to the mistakes they’re making, or they fight the symptoms of the problem and not the problem itself.

They believe: if open rates drop…they’ve got to find a more responsive list or hire a copywriter to write more compelling subject lines. If no one jumps at the promotion… it’s because they delivered their message on the wrong day of the week. If their email messages aren’t being delivered to the inbox… it’s time to find a new email marketing service.

Look, successful email marketing is NOT determined solely by subject lines. It cannot be achieved by just avoiding SPAM words. A defined email length will not make or break your bottom line.

And long-term success has never been determined by a certain day of the week.

If you want to see real results from your email marketing efforts, then stop reading articles about the “7 Words You Should NEVER Use in an Email.” Focus on the concepts that will make a difference.

The key to creating successful, effective email marketing campaigns is tied up in 3 critical (but little known) techniques:

1. Use Segmentation to Send ONLY Relevant Messages… “Stop Blasting Emails to Your Entire Contact List!”

As a legitimate email marketer (as opposed to a SPAMMER), you know how important permission-based marketing is. You know it’s imperative to get permission before freely sending emails to your prospects and customers.

Unfortunately, without segmentation, you’re still committing one of the greatest sins in email marketing…sending people emails they don’t want to receive. For most small business owners, the typical email marketing process looks like this: IMAGE HERE

Now before you discount yourself from this group, think about it carefully.

Imagine you wanted to send a promotional email for Product A. Without segmentation, you draft the email and send it out to everyone you have contact information for.

Stop blasting emails to your entire contact list! No single email will be relevant to EVERYONE on your list. But without segmentation, you have no idea who’ll respond.

And, no matter how great your promotion is, no matter how fantastic your product or service is…you will only ever reach a handful of interested people.

And you’ll irritate or start to drive off the rest.

With each “blast” you’ll get:

• A handful of interested people who like Product A and are glad you sent them an email

• A group of people who want nothing to do with Product A, or you, and flag your email as SPAM

• A few people who like Product A, but they want it in blue & you’re promoting it in red

• A growing list of people who lost interest in you

Now, let’s imagine a different scenario. You want to send a promotion for Product A. So you find all the customers and prospects who have recently shown an interest in Product A and send them an email.

We’ll let you guess the results of a targeted email like that!

Effective email marketing requires you to know everything you can about your contacts. You should know their name, gender, email address, location, marital status and career, as well as:

• Their interests, particularly as they relate to your products and/or services

• When and what they last purchased

• Whether they open and click on emails

• Their behaviors (wouldn’t you like to know if a prospect had visited your website?)

With these details, you always have the chance to send targeted, relevant messages. Messages that get results! That is what makes the difference between you and millions of other small business owners.

2. Keep Your Email Marketing Consistent and Predictable… “There’s No Excuse for Losing Touch or Breaking Trust!”

Imagine you had one lead, and you could spend all of your time getting that lead through the sales funnel to a purchase. How would you do it? What would you say? How much time would you spend on that lead?

Now imagine you’ve turned that one lead into a customer. And you can devote yourself to turning that one customer into a raving fan. What actions would you take?

Now…multiply that one lead by 5,000. What happens to your schedule? Well, unless you have super powers, you can’t possibly do for the 5,000 what you did for the one. There are only 24 hours in your already busy day. And inevitably, the consistent, personalized attention you gave one prospect is forcibly diminished into:

• A follow-up phone call every couple of months

• An occasional “mass” email

• A two-week long autoresponder sequence

But just because you’re strapped for time doesn’t mean you should neglect your contacts.

Your contacts deserve consistent, valuable communication from you whether you have one lead or a million. And they’re more likely to buy if you are someone they can trust… not just the person who sends them a promotional email once in a while.

Once in a while does not build relationships. Ironically, most small business owners send emails when they want to run a promotion or when their sales numbers are down. Then, they can’t figure out why no one is buying. No one is buying because your customers and prospects are working on their time. Not yours. And your only hope of closing additional sales is to be there at the exact moment your contacts decide to buy.

Chances are that moment will not occur the last two days of the month. With an advanced email marketing system, you will always be there when your contacts need you.

Because you can stay in touch with ALL of those people, you can:

• Follow up with new prospects when they request a free report

• Let contacts know about upcoming events

• Send weekly tips and tricks of your industry

• Immediately send out emails about Product A (in blue)

• Deliver a monthly newsletter

Devote the necessary time and resources to making your email marketing consistent. If you promise to send a monthly newsletter, than you better send out a newsletter. If someone expresses an interest in your free report, you better email that free report right away (and follow up to make sure they received it).

You need to be someone they can count on to keep in touch. And you need to be someone who follows through on expectations. There’s no excuse for losing touch or breaking trust.

Consistently sending emails to your prospects and customers will help enhance your relationships and lead to a significant increase in sales.