Several clients have approached me recently with questions about some of the basics of marketing via permission-based email newsletters, and rather than re-create the message from scratch each time, I’m posting the information here. For the next several weeks, I’m going to post parts in a series about Developing an Email Marketing Strategy. After that, I’ll be back to our usual drivel, I promise!

Determine Your Audience. More than likely, you’re already familiar with your target market — those prospects who make you smile most, when they convert to actual clients. But for many businesses who are marketing via email, your target market may not be the exact market that will open and read your email messages. Busy professionals, for instance, may receive more than a hundred emails in a day, and — nothing personal, but your message doesn’t possess the same urgency that others in an inbox might.

While this doesn’t mean that you should not communicate to that market, you should rather a little time thinking about what will make that target client stop and read. What will come across as relevant? What will come across as urgent? It’s often the urgent, and always the relevant, that gets the best read.

A well-planned campaign will be well worth the forethought.

The more you tailor your messages to target recipients, the more effective it will be. The economies of email allow you, the sender, to target your emails with precision, so take advantage of the technology. For example, if you are making an offer applicable to both realtors and accountants, you’re likely to have better results if you’ll split the two groups into separate Contact Lists, and send two separate emails.

Before you write your emails, develop a thorough understanding of the needs and interests of your target market. This understanding will help create a style and tone that is appropriate to your audience — whether your readers are entrepreneurs, corporate-level executives or stay-at-home moms.

All levels of membership at Online Outbox offer unlimited Contact Lists. Read about other features of Online Outbox here.

This post is a continuation from my thought last week: that while the typical salesperson gives up too soon, his prospect is typically ready to buy tomorrow (80%, to put a number to it). The magic number is 7 impressions. It takes the typical person 7 impressions before they buy.

Granted, none of us are typical. But I suppose the stats apply to the median of the whole at large.

The point I’d like to make here is that you can’t send an email blast and expect your prospects to come running. I advocate pushing your products and services to the same contact over a period of several months. Don’t just send the same message each week. Change it up. Highlight different features. Create targeted landing pages on your web site that will convert better than just sending prospects to your home page. Keep it simple, but over a month or two, your target client should have a good idea of what it is you sell, and what it could do for them.

Then they still won’t buy. But one day, when they come across a need that specifically relates to them, your product or service will be fresh in their mind.

What was that saying from Winston Churchill about never giving up? I lose count of the Nevers.

Here are some interesting stats I came across today: the average salesperson gives up after the fifth contact. He (or she! — we are an equal opportunity marketing service) will initiate contact and follow up four times, and then decide that the prospect is not interested, and will opt for not wasting any more of his or his prospects’ time.

Now get this: 80% of these prospects buy after the 7th impression. The 7th! So the salesperson that gives up often walks away from a sale, when he’s nearly there.

What’s that mean to us marketers? If you give up on a qualified prospect too soon, you’ve burned that time invested in that prospect. Not everyone will buy. And I’m not advocating giving a prospect two more impressions before giving up. Just a thought: if you’ve done your homework and qualified your prospect, don’t give up in pursuit of a change of scenery.

Source: Seth Godin, the Dip.