Monday 26 September 2011

Failing the Right Way with Email Marketing: How Trial and Error can Lead to Future Success : Useful and interesting web sites


Email marketing maintains a paradoxical approach to effective internet marketing. It works yet it doesn’t work. How can this be so? Basically, email marketing is always a work in progress. Due to the enormously negative sentiment some potential customers have towards spamming, they might be a little closed minded towards certain email marketing pitches. Yet, there are others that have discovered a logical and effective personalized approach to email marketing which can deliver excellent results.

The key here is learning how to fail the right way on the path to email marketing success. Basically, you really need to employ trial and error to succeed with emails marketing. Abandoning email marketing too soon or prematurely means you might not live up to your potential. Rather than do this, it is best to learn how to fail in the right manner. In other words, you need to test the email marketing waters and analyze what when right and what went wrong. Once you analyze the feedback, you can then make effective determinations so as to improve performance.

In short, you will want to avoid getting discouraged when you start an internet marketing campaign. Instead, you simply want to build on your efforts. Doing so certainly will increase your chances for success and history is filled with great examples of this.

Among the most famous saying ever made by a historical figure would be Thomas Edison’s quip after having failed to get a light bulb to work even after 1,000 tries. The legendary Mr. Edison said, “I did not fail. I learned 1,000 ways how not to make a light bulb.

He was right. More importantly, he did become the man who eventually invented the light bulb.

No other inventor at the time found the proper path to make a light bulb. Many tried and many ended up quitting when trying. And out of all the inventers and tinkerers on the globe, only Edison found the path to actually create a light bulb.

Is there a moral here? Yes, it would be that there are really no failures on the road to progress as long as you keep making progress. That is the true lesson that email marketers need to understand.

Here is how all this works as far as email marketing is concerned:

The first step in determining the progress you are making with your initial email marketing ventures. If you gain a small conversion rate, that is a good thing. You are clearly doing something right. If you are getting no buyers, you need to realize you have a really weak campaign and need to make changes. An honest and critical assessment of your campaign needs to be undertaken to ensure you correct any flaws that are present. Trying to convince yourself your email campaign is brilliant when it is not delivering results just won’t help you succeed. So, avoid being dishonest in your self-assessments of your email marketing campaigns.

Often, the problem with an email marketing campaign is the target audience and the other problem is the message. Are you effectively targeting the proper opt-in audience? Does the message you are sending to those on your list appear timely and does it present effective advertising marketing copy? The first question can be answered with a simple yes or no and if you are not sending messages to an audience that has opted in, you can make the needed adjustment easily. You either need to create an opt-in function to build a list or you need to purchase such a list from a reliable source.

As for the second half of the equation, if you are not using effective and timely ad copy, you will need to slowly analyze what is wrong with it. When you are unable to determine the problem, you should ask others for their honest and informed opinion. At this point, you can absorb what they have told you and make adjustments. Be open-minded to constructive criticism and you will discover you email marketing campaign increases exponentially.

One thing to be mindful of here is that there is a science to email marketing. Of course, each email marketing campaign is different so you cannot employ a standardized approach with every campaign. You will need to tailor the scientific components of email marketing to your own unique needs and this is only derived from honest assessment of feedback, foibles and fumbles, and a commitment to improving a little bit each time you try.  Once you do get into the proverbial groove of how to make email marketing work, you will discover how potentially lucrative it can be.

Mariana Fang Lin is an avid blogger and writes throughout the blogosphere. She really likes writing about mobile marketing, business web hosting services, and SEO strategy. You can follow Mariana on Twitter here.


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