Email
is fast and cheap compared with traditional mail although it's
not very good at sending spare parts for your customer's photocopier!
In business you should strive to use email wherever possible in
preference to the alternatives. If nothing else it saves turning
so many trees into paper.
For
the smaller business, however, email opens the door to techniques
difficult to afford in the more traditional way.
Using
email it's easy to send a newsletter to hundreds of customers
alerting them to a new service or product. If you had to pay for
printing and postage you might find the cost beyond your reach.
Email
is far cheaper than making long distance phone calls to the other
side of the world.
Email
doesn't require the recipient to be able to "take the call".
So although it arrives a few seconds after it is sent, if the
recipient is busy (or asleep) they can read it at their earliest
convenient opportunity.
If
Internet things are all a bit new to you take your pick from the
following suggestions.
Use
email in preference to traditional postal mail - it's cheaper
and quicker.
Start
collecting (in your email program's address book) the email addresses
of your customers, suppliers and so forth.
At
the end of all your email messages give the address of your web
site - no harm in reminding people where to look for information
about your company.
Your
email program probably lets you create what's called a maillist.
You can add addresses to the list then write to all of them at
once just by sending the message to the name of the maillist.
It's a perfect way to contact all your customers in one hit.
You
can use email to get in touch with potential new customers. If
you surf the web and find a possible customer, email them about
what you can offer. BUT and a BIG BUT make sure you target sensibly
and personalise your message to show you have carefully considered
what you are sending. When people send huge volumes of unsolicited
emails that are poorly targetted for the recipients it is called
JUNK MAIL (also called spam). Spamming is a pretty good way to
earn a bad reputation. Internet Providers disconnect the service
of people who do it to excess.
