Marketing on the Internet: Building a relationship

Take advantage of the Internet's interactive two-way communication channels to build responsive relationships with customers and prospects.

Create customised web content for each visitor to make them feel special:

• Some retail sites 'remember' a customer's preferences, greet him or her by name and offer a tailored selection of goods.
• Capture the information each visitor enters into forms on your site. If a name is given, store it so that it can be used for a personalised greeting.

Maximise the chance of your emails reaching their intended target:

• Use the online tools available to analyse your emails before you send them to assess the likelihood of them being identified as spam. For example, www.marketing-magic.biz.
• Regularly clean your list and give recipients the option to 'opt-out'.

Provide mechanisms to encourage people to respond to your email mailshots:

• Always provide an email address in your mailings which customers can use to contact you.
• Set up an autoresponder, which automatically sends a standard message in response to emailed enquiries.
• Set up different email addresses for different campaigns, to make it easy to compare responses.
• Using an individual's name as part of your email address for enquiries is more inviting than 'sales@yourfirm.co.uk'.