Email promotion

Email promotion is one of the most simple and effective ways of circulating your advertising message.

I track every method I use for website promotion and I've been surprised to discover that this free and simple technique actually performs better than some methods that I've had to pay for.

So follow my step-by-step guide below and make sure that you use email promotion every time you send a message to somebody.

Email promotion using Microsoft Outlook

Step 1: Open up Microsoft Outlook

Step 2: In the menu at the top of the page, navigate to Tools then Options to be taken to the options screen below.

Make sure you click on the tab labelled Mail Format.

Step 3: Click on the button labelled Signatures and this will bring up the screen below.

Step 4: Click on the button labelled New to create a new email promotion and you will see the New Signature naming box below ... give it a name that you will easily be able to recognise as you gather a greater variety of promotional signatures that you mix and match.

Step 5: Click the OK button once you've given your email promotion a name.

On the right hand side, you're going to use the graphic with a mountain and sunshine first (insert image option) and the world and chain link graphic second (insert a web link option).

Step 6: We're going to insert an image first, and as one of the instant and free ecommerce options I suggest elsewhere on this website is ei42.com I'm going to use that as my example.

This image would normally need to be placed on your desktop or in an images folder on your PC ... they can be downloaded from the ei42.com resources website once you've signed up.

As a 'dry run' to save it to your desktop, right click your cursor on the image, select Save As and save it where you want to keep it on your own PC.

To insert an image into your email promotion template, click on the 'mountain and sun' button and browse to the image, wherever it is located on your PC. It will be added to the page as in the screen grab below.

Step 7: You now need to add some promotional text. Add the text you wish to use in the position you'd like it to be, as in the screen grab below.

Step 8: We now need to make the text 'clickable' so that when the email recipient clicks on the text, it take him/her to your promotional destination. To do this highlight the text that you want to be 'clickable' as in the image below.

Step 9: Back to Microsoft Outlook now and click on the 'world and chain graphic' as in the image below. We are going to insert our promotional link, in this case http://www.ei42.com/webcumbria/info/ which is my unique link to refer people to ei42.com.

Step 10: Cut and paste this promotional URL into the window marked Address as shown in the image below, then click on the OK button.

Step 11: You'll now see in the email promotion area that your selected text is underlined ... this mean that when the email recipient clicks on it, they will be taken to your chosen promotional page.

Step 12: You now have to 'map' the signature to your default email address.

Most people will only have one email address that they use, but as a multiple website owner, I have many.

Make sure that you link your new email signature with your most commonly used email address, that way, whenever you write a new email, the signature will automatically appear.

Once you've done this select the OK button to confirm and save your changes.

Step 13: Finally, test your email signature.

Select New to create a new email and your signature should automatically appear as in the screen grab below.

Send yourself an email and make sure that the links work as they should.

You now have one of the easiest, most accessible, instant and free methods of email promotion available to you.

Create a variety of signature options so that you can entice potential customers with different marketing messages.

Do you want something to promote that will earn you money - and you don't even need a website?

Find out how you can create your own free e-shop in less than 5 minutes with ei42.com create simple website widgets which you can add to popular social networking websites.

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