eMail Marketing
eMail marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered eMail Marketing. However, the term is usually used to refer to:
- Sending emails with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or old customers and to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business.
- Sending emails with the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing old customers to buy something immediately.
- Adding advertisements in emails sent by other companies to their customers.
- Emails that are being sent on the Internet
Done right, eMail Marketing can acheive fantastic results, sending highly targeted, highly effective and tracked marketing messages directly to the inbox of thousands of senior decision makers.
Who is eMail Marketing for?
Well, done correctly, a complete eMail Marketing campaign won't be cheap, but when you look into the service and return on investment, the costs can be exceptionally small. Sometimes as low as around 5p per recipient.
If you have something to sell, or a service or event to promote, I personally don't think you can get traffic, leads and results quicker than you can using effective eMail Marketing. From my experience, most recipients will read/respond within a 48 hour period.
What to look out for when starting a professionally managed eMail Marketing campaign
First thing is first, you need the right database. If your target audience is Joe Public, then obviously do not use a B2B database.
Where has the data come from? Is the data double opted-in? What data do you have on all the contacts? What are the filtering options?
There are also a couple of ways for you to undergo a eMail Marketing campaign:
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Buy a database list and manually email each and everyone
Not only is this extremely time consuming, but you will have to rely on sending purely text emails, which have their pros and cons. -
Buy a database list and use an email broadcasting system/software
This is not at all a bad idea, but does mean that you have two charges to pay (email software normally charge you per email sent), but also would need to either settle for pure text emails, or rely on your own html knowledge and design skills.
eMail Software: Constant Contact | Dot Mailer | Vertical Response -
Use your own database and then either manually send or use email software
In most cases, your own database will (or should) prove better conversions and sales volumes. -
Use a company that provides both a quality database and highly effective email creatives
When it comes to email creative, much thought and experience goes into creating cross email-software compliant html and should not, by any means, be overlooked.
Complete eMail Campaign Management: Digital Edge | UK Business Advertiser
