Email marketing

BeeDI

I'm working in a traditional, manufacturing company. We manufacture a range of specialized valves.
We see an opportunity to get business in France.
Our task is to get our message out to the people who count in our target industry.
I already have access to an up to date listing of appropriate email addresses in over 1,000 target companies.
My plan is to create a flyer and mass email!!
Follow up emails, over a period of a couple of months.

My concern is that customers email systems, may consider my mails to be spam, and block my emails!!
Secondly, even if my mails get through, how can I ensure they get opened and read!!

Advice appreciated

Thanks

BeeDi

NathanKingerlee

I'm not an expert at this, but some things we do are; send from yourname@yourbusiness.com instead of info@yourbusiness.com; don't send large batches; don't send at strange times, but during office hours. Your subject line may well decide if clients will open it, so it needs to be engaging. Maybe follow up with a phone call shortly after you've sent the email?

Spineryan

Hi, I have done allot of this and you're right to be concerned as now one like spam....

I use mailchimp for all my email marketing campaigns. One its free but it also offer some great features to make sure the recipient has some assurance and control.

Two main once are, when creating a campaign you must state how the recipient knows you or your business i.e. We have done business before or you put your business card in our goldfish bowl..... Also at foot of the HTML or Plain TXT e-mail the user has the option to remove themselves from your mailing list.

NEVER send mails to anyone who you don't know or at least don't know if they would be interested in your product or service.

Hope this helps.

tricky D

Given that you sell specialised valves, I don't think a once off mass mailshot is going to do you much good. The purchase decision in this kind of market is made in a different way to normal consumer products, and probably in a longer timeframe without instant results. (Might depend on what type of valves you make) I reckon you'd be best off targetting each company individually with a specifically tailored pitch for each one. Many of the pitches will have similar content so you won't be writing each pitch from scratch.

Tangled

Agree with using Mailchimp, use it for all email campaigns and newsletters. Great reports and insights as well.