Using Basic Marketing Principles with E-Mail Marketing

By John Arnold from E-Mail Marketing For Dummies, 2nd Edition

As an e-mail marketer, your job is to convince consumers to part with their money to obtain your products or services. Your persuasive technique probably involves communicating one of two basic messages:

Your products or services are unique and unfamiliar to consumers. Your challenge is to educate consumers who are likely to need your products or services so they will buy from you.
Your products or services are easily identifiable and widely available. Your challenge is to convince consumers that your business is the best choice among the competition.

Communicating a memorable message almost always takes multiple attempts to get consumers to respond. Effective marketing communications also require you to apply a fair amount of strategy and tactical thinking so that your messages stand out from all the other messages that consumers receive.

Applying basic marketing principles to your e-mail messages helps ensure that your marketing communications are in tune with your audience and your overall objectives. Although you can use literally hundreds of marketing principles, marketing message strategy is an ongoing cycle of three basic steps:

Determine your message and the best audience for your message.
Deliver your message by using the media that is best suited for your audience and your message.
Evaluate your results and apply your experience, as well as more refined marketing principles, to determine your next message.

Using marketing principles to determine each message and then evaluating each message allows you to begin with a sound message strategy and continue to refine your messages and your strategy over time.