This quarter, U.S. online sales are expected to hit $13 billion, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. Will you get your share of the retail pie this holiday season?

You can certainly increase your chances, by using email marketing to drive holiday shoppers to your Web site.

Email, used by 96 percent of Internet users, is the most popular online activity among Web surfers at home and at work. And this makes it the ideal communication — and sales — tool for businesses large and small.

No other medium offers the unique advantages of email. An email marketing campaign is easier, cheaper and faster to implement than a traditional direct mail promotion. There are no letters to print, stuff or mail. That means you can deploy a holiday sales campaigns via email in days, instead of weeks.

Plus, the response rate of the typical e-mail campaign easily outpaces that of conventional mailings. Email click-through rates can exceed 20 percent, while conventional direct mail campaign responses are 2 percent, at best.

The bottom line is: Email campaigns can provide you with greater ROI … and higher profits from holiday sales. And this makes email marketing the ideal traffic-building tool for the holidays.

What’s at stake?
Online shoppers represent a sizeable segment of consumers. Nearly half of the U.S. population — 100.2 million people — have made a purchase online, reports Nielsen//NetRatings and Harris Interactive.

And according to eMarketer’s Online Advertising Update, the number of U.S. online buyers will increase as a share of all Internet users to 60 percent by 2004. By 2004, shopping on the Internet will become routine, with 82 percent of users 14 or older browsing and getting product information online.

eMarketer also projects that, in 2004, the average annual purchase per online buyer will be $1,400.47. That compares to $1,248 in 2003 and $1,089.21 in 2002.

Planning your email campaign
You can use e-mail marketing to interact with customers and prospects in a number of ways: electronic newsletters, letters, announcements, promotions, sales and customer support. To run an email campaign, you’ll need to build or “rent” a mailing list for one-time usage.

You can build a list by simply placing a newsletter sign-up box on your Web site, gathering the e-mail addresses of your customers when they purchase products, request services, or need customer service and giving away prizes to people who register for contests and sweepstakes prizes. Compiling a home-grown list can take months to several years to build, but can yield a highly-targeted database of contacts.

If you’d rather save time by renting an email list, you’ll find a range of list categories available from vendors like Accudata (www.accudata.com). For example, consumer lists can feature selections from renters and homeowners to students, seniors and professionals. Business lists, on the other hand, can include categories from SIC code to headquarters.

Stick with permission email
When obtaining email lists externally, choose opt-in or permission-based addresses from consumers who have asked to receive promotional mailings. Also, give email recipients a way to opt-out or refuse to receive further mailings, as required by federal and many state anti-spamming laws. Otherwise, you may find yourself guilty of spamming or sending unsolicited mail.

Better yet, consider using a double opt-in list that contains only people who have twice requested to receive mailings. Here’s how it works: Once someone signs up to receive e-mail, the company sends an automated message to the recipient’s e-mail box, asking him or her to send a reply verifying the request to receive the e-zine or other e-mail correspondence.

Constructing your message
Email message formats range from plain text wording to html and rich media with color, video audio and interactivity. Marketers tend to favor html messages for their interactivity and overall effectiveness. Statistically, however, 62 percent of global consumers prefer text-based emails, according to the Opt-in news 2002 Email Marketing Factbook.

Regardless of the format you choose, your message should include the following elements:
An interesting subject: Make recipients eager to open your email
A clear, conversational message: Just write the way you talk.
A compelling offer: “25% off”
A sense of urgency: “For a limited time only”
A call to action telling them what to do next: “Click here, call or visit …”
A link to a Web site, where you can close your holiday sales

For more information about email marketing, visit www.optinnews.com.

Tracy Barbour, CeM, is a certified Internet marketer, former business journalist and 14-year veteran of the communications industry. CEO of RIGHTResponse eMarketing, she recently published an ebook, “Insider’s Guide to Online eMarketing,” that is available at www.amazon.com, www.powells.com and www.InsidersGuideToOnlineEmarketing.com.