Hi VAF Team:

I'm just discovering that I need to sit down and formulate a great email letter to market to potential new customers and I have no clue where to start...I take that back--I have a general idea, but need more concrete direction, I guess.

What do you include in your email introduction to let people know who you are, what you do, etc. besides just providing a link to your website?

I have a good idea about what I should include, but thought I might ping you all to see what steps I need to include in my email marketing plan...also, what are some 'dos/don'ts' in email marketing?

Thanks for any advice!

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Kathya Kalinine
http://www.emeraldvirtual.com

Information that you need first:
Contact name
The hook for your niche (my niche is ideas and paperwork piling up)
Then think of how you introduce yourself and business in person.
Follow up with what you want them to do (do you want them to visit your website, call you, whatever you want them to do)

What I do when I want to write a letter or email is I start typing my ideas. Then I create the letter. Then I critique it, and then do it again (is there a better, more professional word for this, does this make sense, is this too long?) Then I send it to my friend (she is really good at working with me and coming up with better was of writing things or telling me that it is perfect the way it is). Then I make changes again and critique again.

Remember no errors! You are representing an Administrative Service and if they find one typo or grammatical error they will not consider you.

Check out MailChimp at http://www.mailchimp.com/ They have a free membership right now that allows list of 500 and 3000 emails a month. This will make it easier on you to add all your prospects and mail them your intro letter and then later you can mail them newsletters or special offers. Set this up instead of putting all of them in your current email contacts (that can get confusing when you already have so many contacts for your daily/weekly tasks.

Good luck!

Erika Glem
Advantage Administrative Solutions
www.advadminsol.com

I agree with Erika. Not everyone does them the same. But, I try to keep it lively, upbeat and to the point. I use Publisher to create them and send them on.

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Action Jackson Virtual Assistant|

I am in the same boat as Kathya. I just joined mailchimp and also simplycast. I have to admit mailchimp is the better of the two. I didn't think about using Publisher. Thanks for the mind jog!

How do you transport your Publisher newsletter to Mail Chimp? I have the letter ready, but when I email it, it comes in the mail messed up and when I try to copy it to Mail Chimp it doesn't work.

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Erika Glem
www.advadminsol.com Let my administrative solutions be to your advantage.

I haven't gotten to that point yet. Keep me updated though. I would like to know if it works with mailchimp.

I am actually going to post a new thread asking for help. Keep your eyes open.

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Erika Glem
www.advadminsol.com Let my administrative solutions be to your advantage.

Ok, Thanks, I'll keep a look out for it.