Using email to reach customers

In a lot of the e-marketing and regular marketing that I have been reading about, it mentions email campaigns.  I've been wondering what all that means and really entails.  Like, I expect to get emails from companies that I know about and actively signed up to get their emails.  But how do I reach people who might not know about my company yet?

Campaign monitor.com  has a very visually appealing site with lots of good information on how to get going with an email campaign.  It doesn't really expand on HOW to get the emails, other than ones you already have. 

Neilpatel.com does go in depth a little more but still really relies on getting people to give you their email once they are at your site.   One thing that was mentioned was making sure that your email is whitelisted, so that it doesn't get automatically blocked by major service providers.  

More reading suggests that if you don't have a site or are starting out, you'd need to spend some money on an Opt-in list.  And basically spam people that way.  It could be dangerous, as target customers might have a negative opinion after getting your email in their junk mail or it might pay off and get someone to look at your site who you might not have gotten to by other means.

More on Marketing

Marketing online is such an easy way to go about marketing your company or your brand. This goes beyond a simple social media presence and looks at things like email campaigns and search engine marketing.

It isn't enough just to have posts and followers and "likes". Those clicks need to be able to turn into real revenue, either by customers buying things from your site or through pay-per-click advertising.
Content has to be in the right area at the right time.

Do you get in on a mailing list and send out 1000 emails? Do you piggy back off of a like minded other company, ideally one more successful than you? Do you pay to have your website featured on the first page of search engine listings?

7 Different types of Digital Marketing offers some ideas and suggestions.
Advantages and Disadvantages is another good site.  They point out the disadvantages of e-marketing and only having an online presence.  Sometimes people still want to have hands on , face to face time with a product and don't only want to interact online.  Also, it takes time to keep everything online updated.  It needs to stay fresh and current or can slip from the minds of potential customers, especially during the start up.

Passive income for the winter

Now that we are coming up on Thanksgiving and working our way into winter, the garden slows down.  That also means the income from anything growing on the farm slows down or outright stops.
We're still eating from the garden but we don't mind eating the tomatoes (because yes, we still have tomatoes growing) that have blemishes, or the turnips that are the size of a volleyball.  Those are products that while perfectly fine to eat, aren't as easy to work with for the average consumer.
Last week, I shared some information about getting involved in stock photography and this week I'm thinking more on how to turn a blog into income.
There are a lot of blogs out there already and it would be an easy thing to add some of the pictures I'm already taking for the stock photos, to the blog. That would be a very niche way to separate my blog from others.   It would take a lot of research into what is out there already and what is doing well, to determine what might be lacking.  At this point, I think other than basically being willing to start documenting from the ground up, the only other difference is geography.  I'm not sure of any others in the North Alabama/Southern Middle Tennessee area.  So we'd just have a different perspective.
Being so close to the state line also offers twice as much learning about rules and regulations.  All that can be shared in a blog, as well as the steps taken. But, this is only good if people can find your blog. One easy way is to pay to have the blog listed or actually get a domain name and real website.  Basically, if it can't show up in an internet search, it doesn't exist. This is one of those "takes money to make money" types of things.   This site, offers some nice things like tracking how many readers your page gets. It also offers "AdSense" which allows targeted ads to be in the blog, which can generate income.
Another way is to do a review or share a favorite brand or product.   Mention enough times how much a certain brand of fencing or trowel or whatever works for you and you can turn that into a link where if your bases buys through the link, you get a little kickback.
It all still goes back to marketing principles and how to get your name and product out there, even if your product is a blog.