If you have been following the news on Christmas and January sales, the figures paint a gloomy picture. But hold on, if you look a little closely, most businesses report that whilst traditional sales have fallen, online sales have increased year on year. This demonstrates a new trend in shopping. You can search for and buy your chosen products or services with the click of a mouse and from the comfort of your own home!

Along with a well designed website a well planned e-mail marketing campaign can boost sales. Compared to traditional direct marketing strategies, e-mail marketing is instantaneous and cost-effective. It is also more flexible as information can be updated more quickly and easily ? brilliant when you want to promote special offers.

It all starts with a good customer database. By encouraging customers to ?opt ?in?, a mailing list can be generated and the information used to build the customer database. This should be kept updated with valid information. It should be remembered that in the U.K. storing and use of customer information should comply with laws such as the Data Protection Act of 1998. It is wise to use a good U.K. Internet marketing consultant to guide you through the process of your e-mail marketing campaign.

Once a mailing list is available, existing as well as potential customers can be kept informed on latest news of your business via e-mail. A few things need to be kept in mind when deciding on the content of the e-mail. Keep the language simple and clear and keep the message brief. E-mail recipients are less likely to read a lengthy e-mail.

Secondly, have something new to say which is likely to be of interest to the recipient. You could also customise the e-mail. For example you could promote a new offer or inform the customer of a new sales outlet in their locality. The company logo and contact details could be included in the e-mail along with links to the website. You could also encourage the customer to forward the e-mail to others who may be interested in the offer. In this way you could potentially widen your customer base.

Many search engine marketing firms also offer a complete e-mail marketing solution by including a monitoring programme to follow up on results of the campaign. This also helps to improve future e-mail marketing campaigns.

Finally, do be prepared for the response generated from the e-mail marketing campaign, and deliver on promises!