Is Email Marketing Dead?

Probably one of the mainstays on the Internet has always been email marketing. Is email marketing dead though? I guess a lot of that depends on who you ask. Many marketers are reporting that email marketing is dead. Now I don't know about that, but one thing for sure it sure has changed over the last few years. With spam on the rise email marketing has taken a real hit on that end of it. Spam is a problem that has hurt email marketing more than anything else. one of the reasons spam has hurt it so bad is that the spam filters that many of these email clients use actually block mail that isn't spam and many will block html emails also. This my no stretch means that email marketing is dead. It definitely has slowed down as far as getting a very good response.

Can you do anything about it? Of course you always have different options to make your email to get through and get read.

Now their our some companies out their that you can join where they will make sure it gets through for a certain amount of money per month. That is one option that you have to get the message through. The other is set up a whitelist which is mail that you want to get through. By putting email addresses on the whitelist the mail has a real good chance of getting through.

Their are email marketing tricks that you can also use to get the email opened instead of toss in the trash. One of the first thing is the email subject line. Making promises that are impossible is something that just won't get it open.

People have seen so many different subject lines that they can basically tell the lies from the truths. If you want to get your emails open the best rule is be honest and have short subject lines. Email marketing has changed through the years in the body of the emails to. People are getting time of long emails with winded sales letters. People get sales letters all the time and if you start your email out like that look for it to get deleted real quickly. Starting your emails out in a friendly manner just like you would if your talking to a friend and than work towards helping that person in the email. This is the proper way to market things. Many people have lost this conception thus they will tell you email marketing is dead when in reality it's not.

People will also tell you that email marketing response is very low. Now really this is a myth. I know marketers who market solely by emails. How is this possible with such small open rates according to the various marketing guru's. It's real simple when you provide a quality product people will open your emails. Email marketing is built on trust and once you lose that trust you are in trouble. People don't realize that trust is big when your talking about email marketing. Building trust and a relationship with people will get emails open at a much greater rate. As people realize that this is the key to email marketing than we can get read of the misconception that email marketing is dead. People actually don't mind reading emails as long as they have value if they don't they won't those are really just simple facts. As far as the future of email marketing it will go through changes over the years just like it has before, but if done right it's still a viable option to get your message to the masses.

5 Ways To Fail And 5 Ways To Succeed At Email Marketing

5 Ways To Fail

How many ways are there to really mess up at email marketing? Let me count the ways! There are at least an equal number of ways to do things wrong as there are to do things right.

There may even be more ways to do things wrong than right. There is usually only one right way but

something there are multiple wrong ways.

1. A marketing email must be formatted so that it can be read in any email delivery system. All email delivery systems do not use HTML. Some only use plain text.

Plain text is only ACSII characters. Those are the characters that you can see on your keyboard. The only program that comes on your computer that uses only ACSII characters is NotePad.

Use that program to write your email marketing messages. Not doing that is one of the primary ways to fail at email marketing.

2. Plain text email delivery systems will deliver messages that have lines longer than 65 characters but all of the characters greater than 65 will be scrambled. The email message will be a lot of gibberish. This is yet another way to fail at email marketing.

3. Marketing email messages should only promote one product or one service at a time. Multiple products and services advertised at the same time will lead to email marketing failure.

4. Links that are sent word-wrapped will not appear as clickable links in plain text email delivery systems. The recipient will only see the words. They wont see the link and they wont know what the link is. Not sending full website addresses is another way to guarantee email marketing failure.

5. Marketing emails that are filled with misspelled words and poor grammar will cause the recipients to think that the sender is not all that bright or, maybe just uneducated. This is yet another way to fail at email marketing.

5 Ways to Succeed

Success is a beautiful word! Success at email marketing is a beautiful phrase. There are so many ways to fail at email marketing....that's the bad news.

The good news is that there are techniques available that, if not guarantee success, at least increase the odds and put them in your favor.

1. Build your list. Do NOT even consider buying a list. Build your list from scratch. Yes, it will take time but once you get a list going to will actually self-propagate and it will be a list of names of real customers and real prospective customers. Use all of the available techniques and your list will be your most valuable asset. A long and impressive list of real prospects opens doors for you that will otherwise remain closed.

2. When you send your marketing emails to your list be certain that they are formatted in such a way that all email delivery systems will deliver them in readable form. Use NotePad to compose your messages so that you have only ACSII characters and be sure that your lines are never longer than 65 characters.

3. Never, ever word-wrap links. Plain text email delivery systems will deliver word-wrapped links without the link. Always type out full website addresses.

4. Never promote more than one product or service per marketing email. Keep your emails short. 300 to 400 words long is long enough for a marketing email. Be certain that all of the links in your marketing email work and that every word is spelled correctly. Double check your grammar, as well.

5. Do NOT over-do sending marketing emails. Remember that these people who opted into your mailing list gave you permission to email them but they did not give you permission to pester them to death with marketing messages.

Earn Money Online With Email Marketing

Many companies of all sizes and types use email marketing as a low cost way to contact customers and potential customers because it is very cheap to do when compared to avenues like traditional direct marketing.

Email marketing is a proven way to promote products, whether they are products you promote through an affiliate program or your own products you develop. Email marketing is a very powerful tool to make more money online.

Your email marketing campaign works by first getting people to join your opt in email subscriber list. You can do this by placing an email capture form on your website and creating a free theme-based newsletter to send to your subscribers.

You can even be extra careful to follow email spam laws by making your list a double opt in list where the subscriber has to confirm their subscription before they can join your your list.

Your newsletter will feature interesting content for your target market. Once you have built up a good sized list, you can start placing some ads for the product or service you are promoting in your emails. You can even build a separate list for announcements for people who want to know about new products, tools and offerings in the industry. They will be more likely to buy from you because they already trust and like you.

Types of Email Marketing:

* Newsletter (Free) - will have a couple of ads, as mentioned above.

* Information Please Mailer. These will help you close more sales. You place either a link or email capture box on your website for visitors to fill out with their email address. They will then get a series of emails with more information about the product with a call to action at the end. This method of email marketing is very effective because it warms up the reader before sending them to the sales page to close the sale.

* Special Broadcasts. these are sent to your whole list and discusses a product or service that will help your visitor in some way. Having loyal subscribers who trust you and want to know what products you recommend is a great way to make money online.

Two Tools For Effective Internet Email Marketing

* An Auto Responder. There are many services for email list management

* Email Signature File

Can Spam Act

It is very important to follow the Can Spam Act when sending your emails. In every email you send out, it is a good practice to include your name, company and physical address at the end. I didnt like doing this either, but you wont have any problems since people can always opt out of your list, and email list building and email marketing is crucial to building your online business. It is also very important to allow your visitors to opt out of your email list should they want to.

Spam Filters

Email marketing list management services save time for hundreds of webmasters. Some services have a built in service that lets you check your email messages against a Spam Filter so you can know what to change so your email will be more likely to reach the visitors inbox, and not get trashed in the spam folder.

Another good thing about email marketing is that it is very easy to set up an autoresponder or free newsletter and the results are easy to track. You can know what links they click on inside the email and how well your messages are working in getting you more sales.

Email marketing management services run on very fast machines so your emails arrive instantly and most people check and read their email everyday. This makes email marketing easy to use to as a great way to supplement your online affiliate marketing efforts.

Since you will need content for your newsletters, try to find affiliate programs which provide you with quality pre-written articles to use to promote their products. Without the need to spend time researching and writing your own content and with an effective email marketing system on your side, you will surely earn more money online and bring in more affiliate commissions.

Email Marketing Has It Lost It Effectiveness?

Email marketing is, as the name suggests, is the use of email in marketing communications. Email marketing is still very popular because sending email is much cheaper than most other forms of communication. It lets you deliver your message to the people (unlike a website, where the people have to come to your message). Email marketing has proven very successful for those who do it right.Is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience.

Email marketing is often reported as second only to search marketing as the most effective online marketing tactic. And is a technique used by marketing professionals that are looking to make contact with companies and individual prospect alike that have met their special parameters. Email marketing is still one of the most cost effective ways to contact prospects and customers. It is still one of the most powerful marketing tools available to businesses of all types and sizes.

Email marketing is about developing a relationship with your recipients. While is one of the easiest, most convenient ways to market your company,and products. Email marketing is not expensive,is an affordable way to stretch a tight marketing budget. Email marketing is very effective which enables you to proactively communicate with your existing customers and prospects instead of passively waiting for them to return to your Web site.Email promotion is inexpensive, extremely effective and very easy to do. And still a very effective way to generate traffic to your website and more sales.

Email campaign is most effective when the recipients are targeted and the information is relevant and timely.Is more cost-effective and achieves results faster than traditional direct mail marketing. Most importantly, email marketing is twice as effective as traditional direct mail in getting a response from the targeted audience. Is an easy, affordable, and effective online marketing tactic that allows you to open up dialogue with your customers so that you can send personalized more relevant communications which your customers want to receive.

An effective email marketing strategy includes content and frequency planning, creative and content development and usage of a spam-free deployment system as well as email campaign tracking, analysis and reporting. With response rates that range from 3-15%, marketers can not overlook the power, effectiveness, and cost savings that responsible; selecting email marketing can bring to an organization. It is extremely cost effective, can be highly targeted and customised, is measurable and best of all takes advantage of the consumer's most prolific touch point with the Internet, their inbox.

There are many different methods for promoting your business online, but one of the most effective is still the email campaign. Building your list online can be one of the most effective ways of promoting your business online. Email marketing is a very easy and effective way of staying in touch with your clients as well as your potential clients. An online marketing program is incomplete without the use of an effective email marketing of its product.

Email marketing is by far the safest, most reliable and cost-effective medium to get your message out quickly. Is perfect for approaching both businesses and consumers;Whether you are targeting consumers or businesses, you can use email to send an informational or marketing message to your most important customers or prospects. Based on research conducted by the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing is predicted to return an incredible $48. It has been emphasized time and again that email marketing is the strategy to have in your business. Permission-based email marketing has some specific advantages over other tools of online marketing.

The Secrets To Affiliate Email Marketing

So, you've joined the ultimate affiliate program that's going to show you how to make a bunch of money online. But, it is rare that affiliate programs actually show you how to grow a huge email list via affiliate email marketing that you can profit from over and over again.

So, in this article, I am going to tell you how you can harness affiliate email marketing to boost your profits and make way more profits than the typical "internet marketer" that will never make enough money to pay for their phone bill.

1. Choose the perfect affiliate program to promote via affiliate email marketing. This may sound obvious, but a good affiliate programs, with banners, sample emails, and high converting sales letters indicate that they have a decent affiliate program you can promote via affiliate email marketing. The best ones actually train you how to promote their products, but these programs are one in a million.

2. Create an opt in page to collect names and email addresses for affiliate email marketing- In order to really practice affiliate email marketing, you have to collect customer's email addresses. This is commonly done by creating an opt in page that consists of an enticing headline, a couple "teaser bullets" that get their curiosity up and encourages them to enter their info. You also need a "call to action" which, in this case, is a simple name and email you can use to market to the prospect with affiliate email marketing. All of this info needs to go into an autoresponder service as Aweber or GetResponse that'll automate the affiliate email marketing process.

3. Write emails that promote your affiliate product. You'll then want to write a series of 7 autoresponder emails that promotes your affiliate product via affiliate email marketing. You can do this two ways: by writing a long email that promotes your product with a direct link to the affiliate page, or writing a short email that links to a blog post that promotes the product. The latter will allow you to evade spam filters that can scuttle your affiliate email marketing efforts and leave you with an empty bank account.

4. A special note on email frequency: we recommend sending out an email every 2-3 days during your affiliate email marketing campaign. Emailing your opt-in list may elicit spam complaints by prospects that aren't used to getting frequent emails. Emailing less often might allow the prospect to forget about you. An email every 2-3 days will give you a good baseline to start with you affiliate email marketing campaign---until you can test and track to see what frequency garners the highest response.

It is a common saying that "the money is in the list." This is especially the case for affiliate email marketing as it is if you were marketing your own product. So follow these general guidelines to get the highest response from your most valuable possession in internet marketing: your affiliate email marketing list.

To discover how to ramp up your affiliate email marketing efforts, get our free video and learn from internet marketing's elite players.

Online Email Marketing 5 Keys To Profits

Online email marketing has become a very important and crucial marketing plan for many companies offline and online. When you have just finished creating a product, the success of your product is largely dependent on how good you promote and endorse it. Online email marketing is just one of many efficient ways to endorse your product on the internet. Listed below are five keys to making profits with online email marketing.

When doing online email marketing, the first thing you need to consider is how well you build your email list. When building your email list, you want to accumulate a targeted list of subscribers and consumers that are interested in your target market. You should only have people within your online email marketing database that have a good probability of purchasing any of your products. Otherwise, your email promotions will be no more than junk and spam for the most part.

The second key to online email marketing success is to craft your emails really well. The emails that you write should convey a clear and precise message to the reader of your emails. The sales copy of the email should be appealing and you should not use too many images or graphics as well.

The third key to a successful online email marketing campaign is to make sure all of your emails are free from spelling and grammatical errors. If a reader sees an email with a few mistakes, it may turn him or her off from reading your email. In other words, it leaves a bad impression on the reader.

The fourth key of an online email marketing campaign has to do with the title or subject line of your email. The subject of your email is usually the first thing a reader will see when he opens his or her email inbox. Therefore, the subject will determine whether or not your email will get opened so that it could be read. That is why the subject line is highly important when it comes to doing online email marketing.

The fifth key is to be mindful of the type of readers you are sending your messages to when doing your online email marketing. Some of the readers who may read your email promotions may access your emails through their handheld devices and read them through the preview pan. So you may have to craft your emails knowing that this may occur when you send out your online email marketing promotions.

Email Marketing - The Key Ingredients To Prepare A Delicious Campaign Curry

To enjoy a delicious campaign curry, you need to put ingredients such that the final curry tastes good. You need to take utmost care, not to miss out on any of the ingredients, lest the curry will not taste good.

To start with, let me first tell you about email marketing.

Email marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of
Communicating commercial or promotional messages to an audience. It is a collection of related ads or offers. Email marketing is the practice of sending sales letters or customer newsletters by email. Email communications are often more effective than printed direct mail, because a reader can click on a link and go straight to the website the sender wants you to go.

In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. This method of direct marketing is less costly as compared to other media investments like Newspaper ads, TV Ads. Email Marketing is more than just sending bulk emails, newsletters, or auto responders, and then keeping your fingers crossed. Rather, effective email marketing campaigns involve a targeted developmental process and intelligent email list management - smart marketing that works for you.

Email Marketing campaigns are nothing but, promoting yourself and your products in the market through emails to your existing or potential clients to gain recognition of your product.

Let us now know about the ingredients for preparing an email campaign.

Ingredient 1:

Campaign: What is a campaign? A campaign contains a collection of one or more ad groups, which have the same budget, schedule, and geo-targeting criteria. Campaigns are typically created to achieve a specific marketing goal. To send email content to a group of email addresses is called an email campaign. An email campaign typically consists of Email Content, Email Addresses, Subject Line, Test Emails, From and Reply To address etc.(e.g. a new product launch campaign, or a campaign that targets customers in a specific geographic location).

An email campaign can be a normal campaign, a split campaign or even a recurring campaign.
Split Campaign: A campaign can be split based on specific criteria like list, content, subject line and other factors.

Recurring Campaign: A campaign which is sent again and again at specific interval set to email address. This could be based on certain criteria's if required.

Ingredient 2:

Opted Format: What types of formats does a email campaign go to the client? The Opted format could be in HTML, Text or AOL formats. The format is opted by user in the Campaign Request Form (CRF).

Ingredient 3:

Campaign Calendar: It is a calendar wherein you have the current and the upcoming list of campaigns.

Ingredient 4:

Campaign Request Form (CRF): The CRF contains the campaign name, campaign subject line, the campaign number, the client name, his email ID, the opted format, the TAT of the campaign(or the Deployment date. of the final campaign), the test list & the final list it has to be sent & any specific conditions mentioned by the client.

Ingredient 5:

Friendly From Address: It is the Friendly Form of from Address (email address) used to send an email, displayed when recipient receives email (eg.Begonia). It is the name displayed before the actual email address while sending an email.

Ingredient 6:

Friendly Reply to Address: It is the Friendly Form of from Address (email address) used to receive an email, displayed when recipient replies email (eg.seoindiaonline). It is the name displayed before the actual email address while replying an email.

Note: It is possible that the Friendly from Address and Friendly Reply to Address can be the same.

Ingredient 7:

Formal From Address: It is the Email address, from where the actual email is originated (e.g. info@begoniainfosys.com).

Ingredient 8:

Formal Reply to Address: It is the Email address, where the recipients send an email in reply (e.g. info@ebizinternetmarketing.com).

Ingredient 9:

Subject Line: It is the Subject of an email displayed in email box, which normally indicates the content of email.

Ingredient 10:

Turn Around Time (TAT): The TAT or the deployment date when the campaign has to be sent or deployed to the final email list.

Now, your delicious campaign curry is ready with all the ingredients to be served to the customer. But, it needs to be tested for deliverability.

Deliverability: It is the probability of emails delivered in INBOX of email recipients. This includes the Browser test and the domain test before deploying the campaign.

Now the email campaign is ready for deployment (to be served) to the customer (i.e.) Make the reports that need to be prepared for the client.

The report contains the Scheduled count of emails deployed, the Delivered count of emails(actually delivered), their percentage, the total number of clicks & opens, the Unique Clicks, the Unique Opens, their percentage, The Deliverability percentage, the track opens and track clicks, what is the number of Global Unsubs or Department unsubs, the number of Opt-ins and Opt-Out.

So, take care not to miss out on the key ingredients for preparing a delicious campaign curry.

Chapter 8 - Email Marketing - No Not Spam

At its core, Email Marketing is a tool for customer relationship management (CRM).

Its Purpose: To build virtual relationships with existing and potential customers.
Its Benefit: Maximize the retention and value of these customers, which should ultimately lead to greater profitability.

What is Email Marketing?
Simply put, Email Marketing is a form of direct marketing which utilities electronic means to deliver commercial messages to an audience. It is one of the oldest and yet still one of the most powerful of all eMarketing tactics. The power comes from the fact that it is:

o extremely cost effective and has a low cost per contact
o highly targeted
o customizable
o completely measurable

Email Marketing's main strength is that it takes advantage of a customer's most prolific touch point with the Internet... their in-box.

Although spam mail has done a great deal to discredit the Email Marketing industry, the benefits are still apparent and substantiated by the fact that in February, 2006, a JupiterResearch report concluded that spending on Email Marketing will rise from $885 million in 2005 to $1.1 billion in 2010.

Email Marketing - A Step By Step Guide
A successful email campaign requires careful attention - from planning to execution and evaluation of the campaign. There are certain best practices and steps to follow which will ensure the success of an email campaign:

Step 1 - Strategic Planning
The first part of any email campaign should involve planning around the goals you will need to achieve.

There are roughly 2 types of commercial emails you can send:
o Promotional emails are more direct and are geared at enticing the user to take action through purchase or sign up
o Retention based emails usually take the form of a newsletter and may include promotional messages but ultimately should contain information of value to create a long term relationship with the reader

A successful email campaign is most likely to be the one geared at retaining and creating a long term relationship with the reader.

Step 2 - List Building and Management
Running a successful email campaign requires that your business has a genuine opt-in database. This means that you need to have the user's permission to communicate with them or you risk having your mail regarded as spam or unsolicited (bulk) email.

Emails regarded as spam can have dire consequences for your organization as not only will your reputation be in jeopardy, but legal action may be pursued in many parts of the world.

An effective, best practice Email Marketing campaign requires an in-house list cultivated over time. This list should contain people who are prospects, customers or potential evangelists of your business, who have explicitly given their permission to hear from you. You can use the website, subscription campaigns as well as the newsletter itself (e.g. send to a friend function) to build lists. An equally important feature is the unsubscribe function. A reader needs to know how they can easily opt-out of your email communication should they need to.

Step 3 - Creative Execution
Email content that your readers will value is vital to ensuring the success of an Email Marketing campaign. Valuable content is informative and progressive and should address the problems and needs of readers. Its all about what they want to hear more than what you want to say to them. The reader determines what value your content provides, not the publisher.

Step 4 - Design
The design of a mailer is sometimes an area that has the least amount of thought put into it. This is usually due to the lack of understanding some designers have of usability. The common problems are the:
o length of the email
o disorganized structure of information
o readability of text

Interactive emails are best constructed with lightweight HTML capability allowing the email to open quickly in order to grab the user's attention before he/she moves on. The structure must allow people to scan and navigate the email without too much complication. The length of paragraphs, emphasis through bolding and colors as well as sectioning information with bullets and borders all contribute to a well structured email.

Any good designer will test their email on a variety of current, most used email clients. (E.g. Outlook, Thunderbird, Lotus Notes, Eudora etc). This process is called platform testing and ensures that the email will display correctly in as many email clients as possible. Sometimes it is not possible to ensure exact consistency on every email client; however the variations can be minimized through following best international practice and staying abreast of new developments in email clients.

Step 5 - Newsletter Components
Within every newsletter, there are a number of components that will aid the reader to orientate and better accept and react to your newsletter over time. Consistency is key in some areas while others can be refreshed although remaining within the style and tone of the communication. The most prevalent components are as follows:
o Subject Lines are essential! They aid the reader in identifying the newsletter and enticing them to open it. It is important to avoid promotional words like "free", "win" and "buy now" due to these being flagged as potential spam by email spam filters. Using the name and edition of the newsletter in the subject line aids in maintaining consistency and also helps readers filter them from their inbox.
o "To"," from" and "reply" fields are also opportunities to build the relationship through creating a perception of familiarity. In other words, the reader needs to perceive that the newsletter is somewhat unique for them and sent personally by the publisher. Using a personalized company email address for the "reply" field creates familiarity and builds trust with the reader. The "from" address should also include the organization's name. A meaningless "from" address which the reader cannot identify only serves to confuse the origin of the newsletter.
o Personalization should be standard practice with emails. However, some companies still start the newsletter with a greeting like "Dear Valued Guest". This can be acceptable as a default greeting; however, using their first name or surname can create a perception of a more personal email. This can be taken further if the customers give you a preference regarding the content they like the most. The text and images in the email can be tailored to match preferences and interests upon delivery.

Step 6 - Deployment
Any good email marketer should be able to ensure an excellent delivery rate. A challenge for email marketers today is getting past the various spam filters on the path to the readers inbox. It is worthwhile to check emails against various spam filters, like Spamassasin, to ensure your legitimate message is not mistakenly picked up by one of them.

Delivering emails at correct and consistent times also contributes to the reader fostering a relationship with your organization. A good offline example of this relationship is the daily newspaper delivery which arrives at your door at the same time every day, week or month.

Step 7 - Tracking and Reporting
It is crucial to determine the success of your email campaign on the short and long term basis. For this you will need an email tracking system which produces statistics in a user friendly manner. It is important that these statistics are used in a way which improves and refines the email campaign to boost your goals and return on investment (ROI). The following measurable contribute to your understanding of the performance of email campaigns:
o Subscriber Growth vs. Decline - Tracking the growth or shrinkage of your database can help you analyze what is or what is not working in a newsletter. A significant or consistent loss in subscribers is a key indication that you are not meeting the needs of your subscribers. A high pass on rate indicates that your list values the content enough to constantly share with others. Splitting the list and testing 2 versions of the newsletter can help determine the cause of high unsubscribe rates. The size of the list however, is not as important as the quality thereof as a high percentage response from your existing newsletter recipients carries more impact than subscriber growth which may still yield low response rates.
o Click Through Rates and Conversion - This measures the effectiveness of your email via the links placed therein. When a reader clicks through to a webpage, these can be easily measured as a percentage against number of delivered, opened or sent emails. By analyzing these statistics, the email marketer will be able to tell which content or promotion was the most enticing for the reader. Measuring the click through and conversion rates will ensure that you are able to track differences and trends the same way over time in order to improve the newsletter content and its impact.
o Feedback and Interaction Handling - The feedback from readers is probably the best way to gauge what impression your newsletter is making on them. If you are receiving regular positive feedback, chances are that many of your readers are impressed with the style and content of the newsletter. Evaluating what they are saying about you in other areas on the Internet will also help you get a better picture of the reputation of your brand online.
o Split testing - This is one of the most important parts of an Email Marketing Campaign! Split testing across a host of factors like open rates across different subject lines, different days of the week and times of the day, different copy styles and email length, for example, will enable you to see what is working best for your campaign. In short there is no alternative to putting a lot of time and energy into testing and fine tuning your email marketing strategy - your open rates will improve and the results are well worth it!

Well there you have it; we now know email marketing is controllable and measurable: making it one of the best means to ensure a return on your investment, by acquiring new customers and new sales.