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What, Why and How of Email Marketing
As the name itself suggests, Email marketing is the use of electronic mail for the purposes of marketing communication. Generally this term is referred to:
•· Direct promotional emailing used to gain new customers or sell more products and services to existing ones.
•· Emails targeted at building customers' loyalty and maintaining good relationship with them.
•· Advertising and sending marketing messages in other peoples' emails.
The popularity of email marketing is largely accounted for by the following factors:
It is much cheaper than other means of marketing communication. It allows delivering messages to people directly rather than having to get them come to your message (for example to your website). Proper email marketing campaigns turn out to be very effective.
There are three major types of email marketing:
1. Direct emailing
Direct email marketing involves sending promotional electronic messages such as announcements of new products and services, special offers, etc. to a list of targeted customers. There are service companies that rent out their email address lists, so that you can send your marketing messages according to peoples' interests.
•2. Retention Emailing
While promotional emailing aims at encouraging the customers' action (e.g. buying a product, service or idea, etc.); retention emails are designed to provide long-term influence on the recipients. They usually take the form of newsletters, i.e. regular emails containing valuable information alongside with sales messages.
•3. Advertising in emails of other companies
Apart from developing newsletters of your own, you can also put ads in the emails that other newsletter publishers send to their subscribers. There are many companies that create newsletters exclusively to sell advertising space in them.
The effectiveness and benefits of email marketing speak for themselves. According to Direct Marketing Association, in 2006 the ROI of email marketing equaled $51.58 for one dollar invested. 80% of marketers that took part in a survey conducted in 2007 indicated that email marketing is the best performing media with ROI superior to other channels.
There are a number of reasons why email marketing is so effective.
It enables you to target potential clients, and promote trust and loyalty in existing customers. Apart from driving in direct sales, email marketing also serves as a supporting activity to other marketing channels. Promotional emails successfully encourage immediate action on the part of recipients (downloads, sales, subscriptions, registrations, etc.)
But the truth is that not any email marketing campaign is that effective. There are numerous challenges on the road to success. It's not that easy to develop appealing email messages and deliver them to the right audience. And it is even more difficult to get people read your emails and respond to them in the way you want. You need to do a lot of research and analysis before actually launching your email marketing campaign. Another option is to turn to experienced professional marketers who will develop an effective email marketing strategy based on the needs and goals of your business.
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