Profit From Email Marketing
Every type of business can reap the rewards of a well-planned email campaign
Tags: Ecommerce, Marketing
Email marketing can tighten up your overall marketing efforts
Email Marketing has consistently been the highest performing direct marketing method in terms of ROI for years now. Couple the high returns you can achieve with very small start up costs and you have the perfect marketing tool for today's economic climate.
A popular misconception of email marketing is that it is just for big, multi-national businesses. Every type of business from small regional companies to large, international organisations can reap the rewards of a well-planned email campaign.
I work for mailingmanager (an Email Service Provider) and get to see a wide variety of companies and the campaigns they produce. One company that has always stood out is a village pub that emails their locals with the weekends' activities, forthcoming special events and menu changes.
This is a perfect scenario for them. They build up their mailing list by asking the locals to put down their names and addresses whilst in the pub. They can then send an email midweek to advertise what's happening this weekend to their self-built list. They also send out an email to their recipients early on a Sunday morning advertising their roast to tempt people into not cooking on that day.
Email marketing can also be a useful tool in tightening up your overall marketing efforts. Because of the instant data collection you can get from email marketing, you can use that as a market research tool.
With some Email Service Providers, such as mailingmanager, there are in-depth statistics sections which can track open rates, click throughs, and which areas were the most popular within the email itself. By assessing this data and taking note of the areas that were particularly popular, you can start to get a better understanding of what appeals to your customers.
As well as gaining new custom, email marketing can be used as an effective customer retention tool. Once the customer has provided their details, they can be added onto an autoresponder sequence which allows you to carry on running the business whilst the email marketing system sends a series of timed messages over months or years to keep your companies branding in the mind of the recipient. You can offer special loyalty bonuses, exclusive offers or just gentle reminders of your presence to ensure that every customer who comes to you will keep you in mind for future purchases.
Email marketing's advantages also become obvious when creating short-notice campaigns. Because email can reach hundreds of thousands of people within a very short time scale, short-notice campaigns give the marketer a unique opportunity to send out messages with the intention of same day responses.
The pub mentioned earlier managed to entice people in for Sunday roasts. Although the message expired the day it was sent, the timing was perfect to catch people at a time when they were responsive to the message, and it was a very effective method.
This can also be applied in the retail sector. A last-minute notification of a Saturday morning sale can create a great deal of extra interest, creating a sense of urgency and a strong word-of-mouth effect.
Many large retailers use this technique to great effect by driving customers into their local store. Once the customer is in the store, there is a greater chance of a purchase as the customer is likely to browse the whole store.
During the Christmas period many retailers enjoy a sales boom, and having products conveniently available is essential for high sales. With email marketing, a persuasive message - such as a discount offer - can be viewed over and over again at the recipients discretion. As the majority of people are at work, this form of marketing allows the recipient to either shop when they can or pre-plan their Christmas shop at their own leisure; something which can be the persuading factor when choosing between two competing companies.
More Information
mailingmanager
About the Author
Alex Fenwick works for mailingmanager, specializing in email marketing campaign strategy and deliverability.
