Design Bit blog by Anthony Brewitt - a web designer, blog designer, Wordpress designer and marketing philosopher. Designbit showcases Anthony’s talents and shares his web design know-how.

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Web Designer Tip: Offer a Email Marketing Service

January 25th, 2010, Category: Freelance Web Designer Tip Web Designer Tips

homer-stampFreelance designers often know HTML / CSS inside out, along with graphical editing, so it makes sense to monetize that skill set as much as possible. You can add another string to your bow by offering a email marketing service, there’s some differences between email and web page creation for example you’ll be using tables for layout, no background images and in-line CSS, so it feels a little back to the future but the re-learning curve is worth it.

Clients will want you to design and then build the HTML newsletter template, this normally takes me about a day or two. Then each time they want a newsletter my clients send me the plain English info and any images/ photos and I glue it together, test and then send.

Email Marketing Software

I use Campaign Monitor for my email campaigns and I highly rate them, affordable for you and your client the system has some great features; link tracking, multiple subscriber lists,  in depth reports, side by side comparisons and customized email greetings (“Hello John”). It gives you everything you need managing the forms, subscriber lists and reporting, Oh and they also guide you through white listing so your emails will get past spam filters.

Testing HTML Email

The annoying part is testing HTML Emails but Campaign Monitor has that covered too with a built in spam and design test (small cost), but you can also simply open a Googlemail account, Yahoo mail, Hotmail et all, set up a testing account on Outlook /Thunderbird etc and do your own testing the same way you would test your web pages for all the different web browsers.

Both Parties Profit

Usually companies want a newsletter to go out monthly so the potential regular earnings are well worth your good time and as a website marketing tool the returns for your client in terms of conversions can change their business.

Why Companies Should Use Email Marketing

It’s a great way of drawing users back to your website every month, its a great way of informing customers of a product or service release, update them on your latest news or blog posts, ask them to fill in a survey or give feedback, or simply for entertainment.

Your keeping your customers aware of your brand and your products/services, sharing special offers and making them feel special.

  • http://www.orangegrovedesigns.co.uk Louisa

    This is a great idea, I have this on my website as a service I offer but this article will now prompt me to push this side of my business some more.
    Thanks

  • http://designbit.co.uk Anthony

    It only takes a handful of clients and you have a decent regular monthly income, clients have greater customer interaction, It’s Hot Chocolate – Everyones a winner baby, thats the truth!

  • http://www.campaignmonitor.com/ Mathew Patterson

    Hey Anthony,

    Thanks for the Campaign Monitor shoutout! We always love to hear about designers building there businesses by offering email marketing.

    Do any of your clients use the WYSIWYG editor to add content and send campaigns?

  • http://designbit.co.uk Anthony

    Thanks Matt from CM, Some clients do, but most want to hand over their content and have everything taken care of.

  • http://www.glendelmdesign.co.uk/ Glen (Cambridgeshire)

    These are fantastic tips for email marketing – great advice. Thanks :) .

  • http://www.curlykale.net matt

    I’ve always wondered if emailing makerting was any good. I’ve tried a bit but using the tips your have kindly provided, i hope for more success, Thank you

  • http://www.keeble.uk.com/ Keeble

    I’ve been pushing this service for a while – so far with limited success. Free ones like Mail Chimp make it easy for clients to put something together for free :/

  • http://www.aztec-online.com Luke Fowell

    I’ve always avoided email marketing but realise its importance. These tips are really useful – Thanks.

  • http://www.jmc-website-design.co.uk Jason

    Like Keeble said, Mailchimp is pretty good. Testing is probably the most annoying part of email design, but is easy to manage with the table format.