Email is a great way to connect with people and carry any kind of business message. For example, you can use this technique to sell software to large corporations and the masses. Email marketing is powerful, but only if you know how to use it properly. You need to build and cultivate a relationship with your list if you want to optimize the use of the email marketing.

The key to email marketing is to focus on the customer. You have to establish and build a relationship with your list. Don’t just focus on the first sale. Instead, you should provide your list with other offers and information. Your customer list craves information from you. They don’t want a direct pitch. They love to have newsletters filled with information that is geared toward their interests. Providing this information makes customers trust you, like you, and want to buy from you.

Tip: Incorporate a human element in your email and it will increase your response rate. Your customer list is like your own fan club. They grow to like you. For example, you can intersperse your personality into your newsletters. This will result in your list anticipating each of your newsletters. If you miss sending a newsletter on time, your customer list will actually miss you.

Tip: You want to avoid inbox road kill. There is so much spam these days in your inbox. You have to set yourself apart from the crowd through your relationship. You have to create a relationship that makes your customer list excited to see your new email and/or newsletter in their email inbox.

If you build a relationship with your list subscribers then you will build a friendship. This friendship evokes loyalty. This loyalty prompts customers to buy from you instead of somebody else. People will actually go out their way to buy a product from you instead of your competition.

Another benefit of working on your relationship is that your customers will open up your emails and read them. They will take the time to read what you have to offer. They will white list your email address. They will trust you. All of these factors lead to increased sales from the same customers. You will earn long term sales instead of just a one shot sale.

Yet another benefit of building a relationship with your customers is that you personalize the marketing process. People automatically put up walls when they encounter marketers. We are taught that marketing is impersonal. Email marketing breaks this theory apart because email marketing is personal. People desire this personal touch. They will feel that you are taking the time to connect with them on a personal basis which is far more powerful then impersonal marketing techniques. In essence, you are creating a fan club with your list.