There are many ways you can reduce your communications costs by using the Internet. Businesses need to communicate with:

• Employees
• Customers
• Other Businesses (suppliers)

 There were two main methods of communication used prior the the internet:

• Mail (external and internal)
• Telephone

 Most mail can now be sent electronically via email and the cost of email is effectively zero. Not only can email replace the standard mail it can also replace many phone calls.

If you need to stay in regular contact with your customers then why not start collecting their email addresses? Almost everyone today has one! You could also collect their mobile phone number and send them an email that way.

Every day I receive some form of promotional material in my mailbox from companies that I have done business with like garages, credit card companies, banks, vets.

Most of it goes into the dustbin, however some I act on. All this promotional material costs money and the results are probably poor. Yet all of this could be replaced by email. Either sent to their mailbox or mobile phone.

Email costs almost nothing to send. You have no printing and posting costs and it give your customer any easy way of contacting you ( at no cost). You don’t even need a website to run email campaigns, but a website is an excellent way of providing extra information like pictures, reports, videos and sound recordings.

In addition Email marketing is targeted marketing and can bring in  phenomenal ROI. However at the moment email marketing seems to be the sole preserve of savvy Internet marketers and high tech companies not for the local restaurant or garage shop.

However that will change over the coming years as small business owners learn more about the Internet and its benefits.

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