E-Mail Marketing – Ways to Keep up with the Competition
Do you still remember the old days when the trusty mailman arrives at your house and hands you a letter, package, or newsletter? Called snail-mail, you need to wait for long days, sometimes even weeks or months, to receive whatever is sent to you.
But the world rapidly changes, and with the Internet and digital technology, snail-mail is considered a system left in the wake of modern change. Today, letters, newsletters, photos, videos, and even music can be sent through e-mail, a method of sending and receiving digital messages from an author to one or more recipients.
Just like most of the things in the world, e-mail has the potential to generate income. And business owners take advantage of this medium of exchange. A large majority of modern businesses utilizing Internet marketing is also using e-mail as a tool to advertise and interact with their clients.
E-mail marketing refers to the action of directly marketing a product, service, concept, or event to a group of recipients via e-mail. When taken into its broadest sense, each and every message sent to a person can be considered e-mail marketing. In a more specific sense, the strategy entails using e-mail technology to send commercial messages, request transactions, solicit donations, thank customers, and address customer complaints. E-mail marketing has now become integral in many businesses that researchers estimate that companies in the US alone shell out USD 1.51 billion in 2011. By 2016, this amount will increase to an estimated USD 2.47 billion.
Different types of industries send their messages out to different audiences using different ways. The same holds true for e-mail marketing. Messages send using this innovative marketing strategy comes in three main different types.
1. Newsletters
Similar to paper newsletters, e-newsletters are sent on a regular basis to those who subscribe them. Newsletters may contain news and updates about the business, new products and services, promotions, and even tips. Newsletters are designed and sent out to build relationships between businesses and their customers.
2. Transactional emails
A transactional e-mail is generally sent to a customer who accomplishes an action with a company. Its purpose is to convey information regarding the action that triggered the sending of the e-mail. Because of its high open rates (i.e., customers actually clicking on the e-mail to read it), clever business owners found it a good opportunity to engage customers, promote something new, extend a promotion, do a survey, or answer customer queries. Examples of such e-mails are order confirmation e-mails, dropped basket messages, and e-receipts.
There are many e-mail vendors that offer special software that manages transactional e-mail support. The software allows business owners to customize promotional messages, target specific conditions and audiences, maintain a customer database, or even run specific marketing campaigns such as customer referral programs.
3. Direct emails
A direct e-mail is a message sent to communicate a promotional message to a specific group of subscribers. For instance, the company may send freebies to a group of subscribers who paid for a monthly fee to avail of their services. Or the company may send discounts to customers who are members of a certain club or organization.
4. Opt-in e-mail
Sometimes, a subscriber may not want to receive certain e-mails. Indeed, the system is particularly vulnerable to spam and the proliferation of unsolicited mails. To eliminate this disadvantage, marketers have developed opt-in e-mail. In this strategy, the recipient provides the company consent to receive it. This creates a perception that the company is a professional, reputable provider, encouraging the customer to continue doing business with the entity.
Which e-mail marketing strategy fits your requirements?