Sales Via Email

Last Updated: 25 October 2006


Email is a virtually free advertising tool. Once you've built up a customer email database or address book, you can send periodical emails informing them of specials, sales, or just reminding them that you are there. Not only is it free, but you know that you are targetting people who have an interest in your products.

The first step is to actually get your customers' email addresses. There are a number of ways you can do this including through online transactions, surveys or by simply asking them. Another popular way is to run some sort of competition, such as your customers entering a draw to win a free product, and to enter they have to provide their email address.





Once you've built up a database of email addresses, you can then email advertisements to them. There are a few important points to remember though:

  • just like regular junk mail, people don't like receiving a lot of junk email. Don't overuse your email advertisements or your customers will get annoyed

  • always give your customers the opportunity to unsubscribe from your email list. This is best done through an automated program that delists them straight away rather than having to wait for you to get around to it

  • remember that your customers provided their email addresses to YOU, and may not be too impressed if you start handing it out to other people or organisations. You should reassure your customers that their details will be kept private.
  • when you send an email to a group of people, do it in a way that doesn't disclose the list of recipients to everyone else. Your customers may be happy to receive emails from you, but not for their details to be disclosed to everyone else on the list, particularly if the email gets forwarded to other people - their email address could fall into the hands of anyone.

    One way of doing this is through a mailing list CGI program. But if you are simply using Outlook or other email program, another way of hiding the addresses is to send the email to yourself and place your customers email addresses in the Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) section. That way they will receive the email but not be able to see who else it went to.

Provided you watch out for the above pitfalls, you should be OK. And don't forget you can use emails to also send out advertisements in all sorts of formats such as attachments, web pages, and more.


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Disclaimer: This page is designed to provide information only and is not a substitute for advice that is specific to your business. Before acting on any of the information above it is important you seek further advice from a professional who has taken into consideration the nature and circumstances of your business.

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