The Internet as a whole was a moving force in the world when it came in challenging geographical boundaries, and making arduously long tasks into simple and almost automated acts.
One of such applications is that of electronic mail or email, which enables people, usually over a free service provider, to use the facility for correspondence.
Email marketing, is defined more or less as the use of the email in sending newsletters, offers on future products and services, as well as other content relating to the maximization of the current service or product being enjoyed by the customer, usually to an existing customer of a company. As such, it is simply utilizing a new forefront of correspondence (the email) vis-à-vis the more traditional means of marketing and enhancing customer value—either through telephone or direct mailing.
Many people consider email marketing as something that can very well come across as spamming. This translates to greater efforts on the parts of businesses to assure the clarity of their email even at the moment of receipt, and more so in their content. Greater stress is also put in the use of valid email addresses, as well as evaluation of the existence of a pre-existing business relationship with the recipients of the email. After all, those with whom the business has had pre-existing business with are either still in a productive relationship with the business, or may be well within the scope of the company’s target audience.
Given there is so much trouble faced simply in trying to avoid the negative perception of email marketing, what benefits are to be had that would justify giving it enough merit to be considered as a viable tool for marketing?
The first and most attractive feature of email marketing is it is low-cost.
Email marketing allows for businesses to go on a marketing campaign without the traditional costs of printing and distribution, as well as the marginal expense of following up further. Moreover, when talking about large volumes of mail, there is very little added cost upon a company utilizing an email service provider in its marketing strategy to increase the number of customers targeted by the marketing campaign, in comparison to printing an altogether new letter or newsletter to send to more customers.
The second and perhaps most noticed by companies who want to use the potency of email marketing is consumer behavior.
While many contend that people do not spend as much time as they do emailing, statistics have shown that people across age brackets spend a huge majority of their time online either reading or sending emails, or managing the emails that have already been received.
Given that emailing is one of the largest activities that comprise a regular person’s Internet time, email marketing directly responds to the inherent potential in an untapped market. After all, if people were in constant use of emails and were considerably spending more time emailing, what you necessarily have is a probable market for a product or service.
Alongside the low-cost implementation that happens in email marketing, it also exists in a less arduous development of the content of a marketing pitch sent through email. Email marketing allows for a company to have a test-run on its target market to measure responsiveness at almost non-existent cost, and make small modifications without incurring huge expenses.
Moreover, when you want to talk about turning interested parties into real viable customers, it’s also a matter of having limitless access to these people who may have greater predilection to purchase the product than others. This is what email marketing affords companies. Email marketing allows for companies to launch a marketing campaign free of geographical constraints, and reduced costs and difficulty in order to get to those people they believe would be most interested.
At the end of the day, the most important benefit that can be enjoyed by a company from an effective email marketing implementation is the fact that within its very core, the heart of email marketing is trying to foster better relationships particularly with already existing customers. Current business trends put great emphasis on increased value added to customer’s money, and email marketing allows for companies to provide continued product and customer support. By increasing the value to be had by citizens, the customers are given reason to patronize a product, which is exactly what companies want to achieve in the long run.
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