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.
