What is email marketing?
Email marketing involves using email to communicate with consumers. More and more businesses, both online and offline are starting to take advantage of internet marketing to make their business more successful. If you own a business, whether it is small or large, you should include email marketing in your campaign – you won’t regret it, as long as you take the proper precautions and are not labeled spam. In the paragraphs below, we are going to give you a complete understanding of what email marketing is and how to go about doing it (the right way), so pay close attention to what we are about to tell you because it could help you bring in more customers.
What Type Of Email You Can Send
This covers each type of email you will send to your potential or existing customers. The terminology is used when referring to:
- Sending out emails to acquire newer customers or to persuade some of your existing customers into purchasing from you again.
- Sending emails that are created to encourage the loyalty of your customers while enhancing the relationship with the customer.
- Placing advertisements in the emails that are sent by other individuals.
Why Businesses Take Advantage Of This Form of Marketing?
This form of marketing is popular because:
- Sending an email is not as expensive as the majority of other forms of communication
- Email allows you to deliver the message directly to your customers
- Can research to gain a better insight into your customer’s needs
- You can even add your social media links such as Facebook, Twitter, google+, etc… to encourage the sharing of your content
The subsequent gives a very brief overview of the different forms of email marketing:
1. Direct Email
This form of email marketing has to do with sending a message that is promotional in the formation of an email. For example, it could consist of an announcement of discounts. Just as you may have a comprehensive list of prospect or customer postal addresses to send these promotions to, you can gather up a list of addresses.
You will also be given the ability to rent a list of addresses from service companies online. This will allow you to send your message to people that are on the list. On a general note, these types of lists will give you the chance to email people who are interested in the product and/or services you are selling.
2. Retention Email
Instead of using those promotional emails that have been created simply to encourage action (sign up for something, buy something, and so on), you may be able to send out something that is called retention emails.
Retention emails tend to look like regular emails – some refer to them as newsletters. A newsletter can carry promotional advertisements or messages, however, they will aim at creating a long-term impact on the ones reading it. The content will need to provide the ones reading it with value, which means something more than just a sale message. It will need to contain information that will benefit, entertain, and inform the reader.
3. Using Individuals Emails to Advertise
Instead of creating a newsletter on your own, you could venture out and find newsletters that have been published by others. You can pay them to place your advertisement in their emails which can generate potential customers for your business. This is a technique that many individuals have used and yes, it works.
What’s the Deal?
By now, you probably like the sound of what was send and wondering what the catch is. It won’t cost a whole lot of money, if any, to send hundreds of emails. This sure beats sending snail mail to a physical address – do you realize how much you are saving by doing this?
Permission? What’s That?
Email marketing is based on the idea behind a permission. It is a complicated issue and has been the subject of debate in the Internet community.
You are going to need the permission of the address owner before you can send them one of your commercial emails. If you do not have their permission the recipients might feel that your messages are just spam, which is unsolicited commercial (bulk) emails. You must never send your email recipients spam. Individuals who get marked as spam may get their email accounts suspended and the website shut off. This means that the reputation you tried so hard to uphold will be destroyed. In some parts of the world, this is considered breaking the law.
Don’t Be Afraid to Educate Yourself
If for some reason, you do not realize how important it is to have permissions and the risks that are associated with ignoring them, then you might very well be on your way to a commercial disaster. However, you do not need to panic. It is very easy for you to ensure that the lists of addresses that you are using to build yourself are based on permission. It is very important to stress that anyone that is thinking about email marketing should take the time to look into the subject of spam and permission, as well as how it interacts with other online marketing tools.
Now that you have been informed about the brief background regarding what is email marketing, you can now go through more information online to develop an understanding of how this form of marketing can assist you and your existing or potential customers. You may also look into books about email marketing which can be found below.
By understanding email marketing you can build a stronger relationship with your customer, drive more revenue to your business, as well as realize a return on investment.
I hope this article was able to provide you with a better understanding of what email marketing is? Go ahead and start your campaign right away to start benefiting from it today – email marketing isn’t hard and this form of marketing is a great way to build a relationship with your customers.