Posted on August 23, 2008 - by Impress Lab
Using Email for Brand Marketing
As perhaps the most common form of communication, email has evolved into a strategic marketing tool especially for small and medium sized businesses. Unfortunately, many small businesses do not effectively leverage email in their marketing campaigns. Often times, businesses can easily utilize email as free, automatic brand marketing. This article explains simple methods to use email to market your organization’s brand for free.
Assuming you already have a domain name, such as www.smithplumbing.com, you can create your own email branded for your company. How often have you seen a small, local business that uses a free email account at AOL or Yahoo!? Instead, you can use email at your domain name for free with the same features you are used to.
Google Apps
Nearly every hosting company includes a certain number of email addresses with your domain name purchase. But do not use the hosting-provided email services as they often limit the amount of inbox space, the number of email addresses, and use confusing and bloated webmail interfaces.
The best option would be to use the free Google Apps solution. The best part is that it uses the same interface used by Gmail users in which your emails are grouped as a conversation (your replies are all attached together).
Google Apps has two editions, Standard and Premier. For most purposes you can use the free Standard version. You can always upgrade later should you need additional space or features. Google Apps Standard version includes several useful features unmatched by your hosting provider:
- Custom-branded Gmail with about 8GB of storage per account
- Unlimited email addresses (joe@domainname.com, jane@domainname.com, etc.)
- IMAP to use an external email client such as Microsoft Outlook (what we use)
Setting up your domain name to work with Google Apps is easy as following some simple online prompts.
Benefits of using Google Apps
Once you have setup up Gmail and Google Apps for your domain name, you can start using their simple and powerful features. While you may or may not need all their free features, the Gmail function is perhaps most important.
Now you will have a custom email address, without having to use a free email provider. Each time you email a customer you essentially are building your brand as your company name is in each email.
You can start building brand recognition; every time a customer receives an email from you they are reminded of your company, not some other company like AOL.