Well, before you do anything, you should first make certain that your sales staff and all sales departments are prepared to make the transactions generated by your email marketing campaign.

Once your confident your business can handle a potential influx of sales, you should follow a few regimented steps to insure you’re making the most of your email marketing solutions.  The below checklist will help you to determine what to do and when to do it.

Determine what day of the week to send your messages.  The theories on this choice are numerous.  Many experts suggest targeting individual customers over the weekend but business-to-business hopefuls on a Friday.

However, a recent study indicates the best day to issue B2B email marketing messages is Monday or Tuesday.  The truth is, there is no hard and fast rule for this factor.

Do your own research to determine what day you think is best.  Consider testing several days and determining which one gets the best response.

There are two times of day that are historically best for sending a marketing email, mid-morning and right after lunch.  At these two times, people tend to be more receptive to what lands in their inbox.

After you’ve determined when and what time you’ll be sending your marketing email, you should prepare to monitor responses.

Your monitoring efforts should cover everything from replies to unsubscribes.  Monitoring your responses early can help you to eliminate and even avoid certain link and spam problems.

Now it’s time to deliver that email and the final step should be creating and email that is attractive, but not too “spam like” that customers will take time to read and find easy to navigate.

An effective interface will enable you to track the results of your email campaign and move ahead as a result of that tracking.

Below you will find a summarized “tip list” derived from various email marketing experts.  Take some time to review these tips and then be on your way to email marketing success.

Offer something to your customers!

In exchange for their contact info, offer your customers something in return. (i.e. a free newsletter, or seminar, or more information)

Be economical about the info you gather!

When gathering customer contact information, only ask for the information you need.

Make it easy for them to unsubscribe!

Make absolutely certain you provide a way for customers to unsubscribe from your e-mail marketing solutions campaign.

But just like real world trends, if you don’t jump on these online trends quickly enough, you’ll find yourself left behind.

One of the biggest marketing trends going on right now involved social networks like MySpace, Friendster, and Facebook.

These networks are all fairly similar; users sign up for a free profile and can post information about themselves, their likes, what they do for a living, etc.

Most let users also post pictures and videos. Once they’ve made their profile, they can search for other people and add them as their friends.

The whole point of these networking sites is to get in contact with friends, family, and, sometimes, total strangers.  It’s the total stranger’s part that really interests us.

By creating a profile for your business and adding people as your friends, you can get the word out there to millions.

Some of these sites, like MySpace, even include special profiles for bands, authors, and filmmakers.  This makes it even easier for people to find your profile and add you as their friend.

It’s great when people add you, but when you invite people to be your friend, beware of looking like spam.  There are enough fake spam profiles on these sites that they’ve all cracked down on people sending out mass invites.  Be sure the people you invite want to see what you have to offer.

Another of the internet marketing trends is the use of keywords.  Search engine optimization, or SEO, is something everyone wants these days.

It involves using keywords, or words that describe your site and your products/services, a certain number of times on your website and in your site’s titles and metadata.

By using these keywords so often, your site will be much more appealing to search engines like Google and Yahoo.

The theory here is that if your site is listed on the first page of search results, you’ll get more views and more business than if your page was listed on the third or fourth page.

Of course, this isn’t always true.  If your page doesn’t include what the user is looking for, they aren’t going to buy anything from you.  Still, there is merit to the part of the theory that says you’ll get more traffic.

You can optimize your website yourself after studying a bit about SEO, but there are many companies out there ready to do it for you.

Be careful here: you don’t want someone writing text for your page that is nothing but keywords.  If your page doesn’t sound natural to a human reader, chances are they will pass it by in favor of one that does.

Taking advantage of both social networks and SEO practices can result in your website getting many more hits.  While, as stated earlier, hits don’t always convert over to dollars, it is important to get people to your website.

Following these internet marketing trends is one way to up your hits which, in turn, often does result in more business.

Internet marketing is extremely complicated and is much more difficult than simply putting some keywords in the text of your site.

An internet marketing plan consists of 8 basic steps: strategic planning, situation analysis, customer analysis, market and product focus, product positioning, pricing strategy, product distribution, and internet promotion.

Step Number 1:  Strategic Planning…

When promoting your business online, you need to keep some things in mind. Ask yourself the question, “what am I good at?”

You need to discover how your business is different from the rest by discovering the advantages that you have over your competitors.

Step Number 2:  Situation Analysis…

This is basically learning about the market that you are in. This can be achieved though various studies such as SWOT analysis, conducting an industry analysis, and analyzing your competition.

The more you know about the industry you are in and how you can succeed in it, the better.

Step Number 3:  Customer Analysis…

Simply put, this step involves learning about your customers. How you are going to effectively market to someone that you know nothing about?

You need to know their likes, dislikes, hobbies, jobs, family life, etc if you are going to market to them effectively. In fact, some businesses do invent personalities that act as the target customer and develop a plan of marketing to them.

Step Number 4:  Market and Product focus…

This step involves segmenting your market and making your company different from your competitors. This is often times referred to as the “Unique Selling Point” or “USP”.

Step Number 5: Product positioning…

Simply put, when a person hears a company name, certain thoughts come to mind. When somebody says your company name, what thoughts should come to mind?

This is something you need to think about. You need to know how to position your business in your customer’s mind.

If you haven’t learned about them yet, acquaint yourself with the 4 Ps of marketing: product, position, promotion, and price.

Step Number 6:  Pricing Strategy…

This is also one of the 4 Ps of marketing. You need to know how to effectively price your goods or services. A good way is to take a look at what the competition is charging. If you are new to the business, you will need to undercut their prices.

Step number 7: Product Distribution…

This is the second P in the 4 P’s of marketing, also known as position. This is the physical location where your product or service is offered. And yes, if you have an internet business then you position is the internet.

Step Number 8: Internet Promotion

This is how you are going to advertise your business on the internet. There are plenty of different methods at your disposal including newsletters, search engines, article marketing and pay per click advertising. Experiment with each of them and try to find what best suits your business.

Hopefully, you can make use of this information to create your own internet marketing plan.

People steer clear of the gimmicks, so if your current campaign is ‘gimmicky’ you may want to consider revamping.  If you make the decision to revamp consider the following.

Try a simple email newsletter. The reason for this is a recent report by Nielson Norman Group, the average e-mail user only reviews and Internet newsletter for an average of 50 seconds.

Whereas, marketing campaigns boarded by e-mail only hold the reader’s attention for around four seconds. As you can see the newsletter format will hold your average readers attention 10 times more than the normal email.

Which in turn brings us to the actual design of the newsletter or the e-mail.

It’s important to create a simple email marketing design that both captures the attention but also keeps the attention.

The simple truth is that most consumers and e-mail users only read a fraction of the e-mails they receive.  The rest of the e-mails that they actually open are merely scaned for content.

Depending upon the individual, different advertising dynamics are found appealing.  For this reason, you’re e-mail newsletter or advertisement should appeal to each of these demographics.

Aside from simplicity, an effective email marketing campaign will utilize ASIC principles of design.  By promoting contrasting colors to draw the eye and call readers to action over the amplification of certain statements.

You may also want to consider the very e-mail inboxes from standard for e-mailing sources. For example Hotmail and AOL both offer varying standards when it comes to opening e-mail.  It’s a good idea to use colors and fonts that will be visually appealing in any e-mail genre.

Most e-mail forums have moved on to the concept that design segment should not contain more than 200 to 300 pixels.

This means that your e-mail design should not be disproportionate.  Try to ensure that you’re marketing design has a smooth flow and is distributed evenly for the entirety of the content.

There have been countless studies on how most Internet users read e-mail and various documents throughout the web.

Your  desire should be to gain reader attention and you can be sure to do this by using an e-mail marketing design.

The most effective design is constructed around a five second view of any page.  That means any information put on your page should be readable/scannibal within a five second time constraint.

It’s a good idea to use your knowledge. When it comes to marketing and media, to ensure that your message takes up less real estate than standard e-mail advertisements.

If your e-mail add takes up too much space or comes across too spammy, most ISPs will automatically filter it out as junk.

The imagery you placed inside your e-mail should convey a rapid message, don’t make the mistake of using photos and logos for mere beautification.

To make the most of your marketing campaign ensure that your pictures says something besides “I’m pretty”.

E-mail marketing is a rapid response industry.  This means you must be certain to give your potential clients every opportunity to make contact with you.

You can be easily contacted via contact information placeed within your messages.  Be sure to include links to your site, your address information, your phone numbers, your fax number and any other information that can be used to contact you on a daily basis, in every e-mail that you send to potential clients.

Let’s face it! Without the proper email marketing design your email camapaign may well be predestined to fail.

Knowledge is power! Use what you have learned here and from other resources well and your email campaign will stand a much better chance of adding profit to your bottom line.

Many people may decide to market their business online without even knowing about all the benefits that are available.

To most small businesses, any form of marketing can be a difficult task, even internet marketing. Honestly, it does take a lot of work and persistence, sometimes even money.

You will find that with the right knowledge of how internet marketing works that you too can utilize it to increase your business.

In a very short time, the internet has become the most used method of communication used by the public. It is also becoming their favorite place to make purchases as well.

People prefer the hassle free experience that online shopping offers. On the internet they can find the best items at the lowest prices; and they don’t even have to wait in line.

Internet marketing offers your business a cost effective selling tool that can increase your product or service distribution network.

Internet marketing is much cheaper than traditional advertising methods, and since there are no paper brochures or fliers needed, you can save up storage space as well.

When it is compared to printing brochures, managing a call center, or putting out radio and TV advertising, you can see how internet marketing would be preferred.

Another one of the many different internet marketing benefits is the fact that you will be able to reach millions of potential customers each day.

People are constantly looking for goods and services on the internet, so when you advertise on the internet you will have people actively seeking you out.

If you were to advertise on the radio for example, then you will be reaching people, but they will not be actively seeking you.

If you have an online store, then you have the advantage of being open every day of the year. Internet marketing gives you the chance to reach a greater number of people and at a lower cost when compared to conventional methods of advertising.

Thanks to the internet, there has been no time throughout history that it has been easier to start your own business and immediately be able to reach millions of customers. Internet marketing also utilizes email which is an instant form of communication.

It makes it easy to contact customers and take orders immediately. Utilizing the internet can give you a significant advantage over your competitors.

There are many different methods of internet marketing that you can take advantage of. These include ezines, blogs, pay per click ads, pop-up ads, email campaigns, and many others.

Using these methods you will find that you are able to heighten the awareness of your company and strengthen the relationships of customers that you may already have.

Now that you are better aware of the many different internet marketing benefits that are available to you, don’t hesitate to begin to put them to work for you.

One of the largest complaints that people have about the Internet is spam, and they ignore anything that looks even remotely spammy.

An important means of reaching people through the internet is often done through target marketing.  This is the idea that instead of spamming one hundred people and hoping that two like your product, you focus on people and online groups who are already interested in similar goods or services.

It’s true that by doing this you will significantly decrease the amount of exposure you get, but this also means that you will reduce the amount of bad publicity you get as well.

All of the people that you sent email advertisements to that weren’t interested in your merchandise are going to think that your company is merely one of those fly by night spamming operations.

Even if you’re not, it won’t change the way they think of your product and their perception of your business practices.

However, if you can focus your marketing ideas on groups of people, who you know are interested in similar things, then you increase your likelihood of having good corresponding sales figures.

Internet marketing principals are not that different from other means of promoting something.

One of the more important rules is to know what people will pay for your product.  Too many times people don’t properly estimate the value of their product or service.

The first time many people see an advertisement or commercial, they form an opinion of what is being marketed.

If they see something they think is priced too low, they might decide that it’s made with lower quality parts and decide they don’t want to buy it.

If they think it’s priced too highly then they may think it out of their price range and discount it immediately.

This is why it’s never a bad idea to look around online at what your competitors may be charging for similar products.

The idea behind this is to get your price slightly lower than what they are charging; so that people think they’re getting a good deal on something.  Of course, make sure that it’s not so good of a deal that they start wondering about quality.

If you are still having problems pricing your items, then you could go to a message board and see if there are any discussions that might give you an idea of what people are willing to pay.  Many times this is the kind of research that large public relations firms do for their clients.

Remember to keep everything you do as professional as possible and don’t be too pushy.  You shouldn’t have a problem learning how to safely and easily promote your company, especially if you put these internet marketing principals into action.

Unfortunately, a great deal of wildly inaccurate information and even deliberately misleading information; has also found its way onto the Internet.

It’s great, and it’s useful, to read articles from site after site after site, but maybe sooner or later you’d want to ask a question or two, and you’d want someone out there on the Internet to actually answer them. Guess what? You can ask.

You can get an answer. You don’t even have to pay for it. How? Easy. Sign up for an Internet marketing forum.

In case you’ve never joined one, an Internet forum is a website, or area of a website, where the site’s members can post information and discuss whatever interests them.

These forums are essentially public—that is, all members can read them. Forums are generally organized by topic.

Within each broad category, the individual members create the topics. One member starts a ‘thread’ by making a statement, or more often than not, asking a question. Someone else responds to the question, and someone responds to the response, etc. This can go on for page after page.

You can get valuable information this way. You can also get complete nonsense, and can quickly realize that just about every wing nut on the planet has access to the net and loves forums.

Some of these wing nuts can be extremely belligerent. Fortunately, most forums are moderated. That is, the site basically hires a referee to keep members from abusing each other, and depending on the site’s policy, maybe even keep them on topic.

Not surprisingly, an Internet marketing forum is a forum devoted to marketing goods and services over the net. Such forums enable you to interact directly with other Internet marketers, and would-be net marketers, getting answers to your questions and in turn, perhaps answering some of theirs.

Quite possibly, you might even be able to market your goods and services this way, and quite organically; you go on the forum and just happen to find out that someone needs what you have, or what you do.

Another benefit from net forums is that they tend to be populated by regular members. This means that over time, the regular members get to now each other, and a sense of community grows.

This can be a valuable source of moral support for someone trying to market a product or service over the Internet.

Chances are, even though marketing over the Internet involves reaching out to potential customers and providing goods or services to existing customers, you can end up feeling isolated.

It’s good to have an informal environment where you can talk shop with other like-minded individuals.

Got a question about Internet marketing? Just starting out and have a lot to learn? Or maybe you have a lot of experience and want to share?

Join an Internet marketing forum. Not only can you do all that but you might just find that you enjoy being part of a net community of like minded people.

The media does whatever it can to have some kind of impact on whatever market they are chasing after. The smart marketer will use that commotion to their advantage. They will ride the wave.

One of the hardest thing for any marketer to do, whether on-line or off, is to create a stir around what they are trying to offer.

You have to have some level of excitement surrounding your product or service for it to see any success at all. It can seem like you are beating your head against a wall many times as you try to get anyone to notice you and to get them to even care.

I am sure that you think that you have something that is very important to offer people. Unless you can educate and convince them that it is important, they just won’t get it and you won’t get their business.

There is a way that you can get by without having to do all the work of trying to generate excitement and educate the people about your offering.

That way is to let the larger media outlets do all the work. Create a marketing strategy that uses that work that the media does.

Sometimes you will luck out and find that there is a big commotion related to something you are offering already and it will only take a little bit to get the social groups interested in what you have.

Sometimes you will have to use your imagination and find a relationship between something big that is going on in the media that has a huge impact on social groups of one kind or another.

Once you find that relationship, though, you can find a marketing strategy that can make that connection obvious.

You will have to educate yourself and look at what is hot on television or on the Internet. Look for what are popular topics on the regular news media, what trends are hot in the world of finance, or what gossip is going on in social circles.

What are the things that is popular? More than likely you are going to find something that your product or service can relate to.

There are times, though, that it might be good to look at the media and decide on a product or service that is timely, that social groups of one kind or another are buzzing about.

Choose something that there is already a lot of excitement about. Watch trends and if you see something that is starting to gain some attention in certain social circles, it may be something that takes off and has widespread appeal. Take advantage of these things.

On your own you will be trying hard to make waves about what you are trying to market but what you will end up making is a tiny ripple.

A smart marketer will notice the tsunami’s being made by the larger media outlet and will use a marketing strategy that capitalizes on the huge splash they make on the bigger social groups laying on the beach.

This is why it’s important for any new business or service provider to understand the principals of marketing.  You cannot simply put your information up and expect people to come flocking to your product.

There are subtle things that you must accomplish in order to get your business marketed properly.

For example, one of the main ideas behind anything being represented is actually not how to push it onto people but, rather, what is the social responsibility behind a product or service?

When people buy something, they want to know that they are buying into the greater good.  Telling people who are looking at your product that their support of your company will somehow affect more than just their pocket book leaves them with a good feeling.  Customers who experience a good feeling with a business are almost sure to return.

Another important aspect of the principals of marketing is known as target marketing.  This idea is that you do not merely put your business up somewhere and advertise in as many places as you can for as long as you have money is not really a good one.

Take the Super Bowl advertisements as a good way of demonstrating this.  People who watch the Super Bowl are generally men and women who are interested in sporting activities.

Therefore, placing a commercial for a doggy day care center during this time slot wouldn’t be worth it no matter how much exposure you got because it would have missed your target audience.

The audiences you should be aiming at for this kind of service are probably watching the puppy bowl on the Animal Planet channel.

So while you wouldn’t have as many people watching your ad, you would have more people who were interested in your business learning about it through the commercial.

Chances are that if they are watching this cuddly puppy-filled playtime, they have dogs of their own or are thinking of getting a dog.  Your day care idea might appeal to them more so than the average sports fan watching the real Super Bowl.

You also need to consider the types of marketing distribution you are doing and how that matches up with your business.

If you offer a service like the doggy day care, then advertising it in the next state would not do you any good because no one is going to drive that far to drop their dog off to board.

You need to concentrate your marketing efforts where they will be the most effective for your company, and once you do that, you’ll be sure to see results.

Remember, according on the principals of marketing, you should not spend time energy or money on something that reaches people outside your area of service.

I’m hear to tell you if you don’t have one on your website, you’re leaving big money on the table.

In fact you may even be dooming your online web marketing site to total failure. Harsh words! Right? But it’s true.

One of the most important things you want to do when a customer hits the buy button, on your site, is to let them know their purchase has gone through and thank them for shopping with you.

This can be accomplished with a simple autoresponder e-mail almost faster than you can blink your eyes. However, that’s not the end of your message or at least it shouldn’t be.

You have a golden opportunity to reach out to your customers and whisper in their ear about any specials you are running and other items you have in your store.

A very effective way to capitalize on the “thank you” message you send out is to mention related accessory items to the product they just purchased.

An example of this would be if your customer purchased a name brand pair of shoes, you would want to offer them a matching hand bag by the same designer. To make the offer even more enticing to your customer be sure and mention a discount off the accessories.

Listen up! Whatever you do don’t include this offer on their e-mail sales receipt. You want your customer to have a “Hallmark” moment with their purchase.

They need to feel they are the most important person on your on line store and no one else matters but them. Take the time to have a very special message prepared for your autoresponder and shopping cart integration.

Frankly, if you’re not a good writer, you should hire someone who is a professional writer. Make sure this particular writer is experienced in writing warm and fuzzy messages.

Although it is an added expense it is a onetime expense only. Your ROI of the expense will be returned to you every time one of your customers responds to your follow up autoresponder message.

Now for a note of caution! Don’t kill the golden goose that laid your golden egg. In effect don’t overuse your autoresponder to bombard your customers with deal after deal.

Remember, you want them to feel warm and fuzzy about you. You want them to feel they are special in your eyes and if your not careful you can wear out your welcome.

Two or three messages a month wil keep your name in front of them and an occasional 4th or 5th time when you have a super deal for them.

Properly worded e-mails will work magic for your bottom line. Very simply it will allow you to form a long term relationship with every customer.

With just a little customization of your e-mails, the importance of your autoresponder and shopping cart intergration will become apparent every time you look at your bottom line.