Say the word “email” and many people shudder. But email does not equal spam. Use it correctly, intelligently and strategically and you will stay in touch with clients, build your brand, and warm up prospects.  Below are 7 tips for integrating an email strategy into your small business marketing efforts

1.  Define your objectives (I know I always start here, and so should your company).  Are you using it for CRM, prospecting, branding, information dissemination or a combination of several of these?

2.  Collect email addresses ethically. Start with the email addresses of your current customers.  If these aren’t already in a primary database, access all departments within the company to gather as many customer email addresses as possible.  Accounting, tech support, customer services, marketing, and sales may all have email databases so collect them all and consolidate to begin.

3.  Build your email database. Ask for the email address of every potential customer and prospect.  Add a newsletter subscription link to your website (more on that below) and make it part of your email signature, make white papers and articles accessible from your site only with a sign-up form, make it part of the credit application.  Any opportunity to ask for an email address, do so.

4. Start publishing an e-newsletter on a regular basis. Establish a look and tone, define what types of content will be included, set a schedule and stick to it.  Twice a month or monthly is a good starting point. You may want to outsource copy writing and creative, or keep it internal depending on your organization’s capabilities and available time.

5.  Use 3rd party deployment company for ease and to maintain list hygiene (opt-outs and unsubs must be honored if you are NOT going to be perceived as spamming).  Vertical Response and Constant Contact are both excellent companies to start with if your list is under 30,000 records or so.

6.  Have a registration/sign-up mechanism on your site.  One do-it-yourself  resource is Wufoo -  a great site for online  form building and registration capture.  Certainly signing up for your newsletter will add email addresses to your database, but offering articles or white papers targeted to the concerns of your customers will not only build your database but add to your company’s credibility and positioning.

7.  Measure results and improve. At the very least, keep track of the number of opens, click thrus and unsubscribes you get with each mailing.  Is there content that had better results? Did your unsubs jump up?  Be aware of the effect your email marketing is having.  Ask your current customers what they think of your efforts, after 2 or 3 have gone out.  You will get feedback on ways to improve and enhance.

If all of this seems pretty basic…it is. But I’m amazed at how many larger organizations either do not have an email strategy, or are not doing it well.  Start now.