Email marketing has made a huge buzz in the online industry these past few years. Studies by AMR Research have shown that targeted email marketing campaign generated about 7 to 12 times the response rate of the traditional snail-mail marketing. Email marketing has been the easiest strategy to do since the emergence of the internet. It became easy to communicate with people and reach your target audience with the use of this technology. That is why more and more companies have ventured into this marketing campaign for the hopes of better results for their business
There are indeed a lot of solutions and services available for any company’s needs but the thing is, it is difficult to choose which one would suit your company best. Before starting to evaluate the different solutions available, it is best to understand email marketing campaign and its components better. Email campaign involves strategy, creativity, copywriting skills, list management, process execution, reporting and analysis. Some of the service vendors provide most, if not all, of these categories. Depending on your company’s specific needs, you may avail some or all of these features.
Evaluating Different Solutions and Services
Email marketing service providers can be categorized in three main areas: off-the-shelf, mid-range, and high-end solutions. Evaluate the main characteristics of each solution in terms of the features, benefits and costs.
- Off-the-shelf solutions. This type of service is ideal for small businesses willing to allot internal resources for email marketing. The features commonly included in this type of service include sending personalized HTML emails, list management, basic tracking and reporting, and customer service. The maximum number of emails off-the-shelf products can handle is 500,000 per month. This kind of service can range for as low as $30 to $350 per month. However, for most of these service vendors, ownership and control of list, reporting and data tracking are theirs.
- Mid-range solutions. This type of service provides its clients with fully customized solutions, from strategy formulation to tracking, analysis and maintenance, depending on the clients’ needs. It is ideal for small and mid-sized entities with advanced marketing needs. These companies are usually those that are comfortable in using outsourced marketing services and customized solutions. The costs of availing the service of mid-range solutions providers range from $500-$3,000 per month. They typically manage 1,000 – 100,000 emails per month. The application that these service providers offer can also be bought outright for $10,000-$50,000.
- High-end solutions. These high-end marketing companies are focused and really specialize on email marketing. These providers offer sophisticated marketing technologies capable of launching and monitoring online or offline marketing strategies that involve millions of recipients. These providers offer a more comprehensive data analysis approach such as helping their clients identify historical patterns to improve their conversion rate. The cost of availing the services of high-end providers range from $6,000-$60,000 per campaign, which average from $20,000-$30,000 for most promotions.
Each company has its own unique set of requirements, and email marketing has evolved to offer different solutions to address those needs. When choosing the right email marketing service, keep in mind your company’s needs. List down all possible vendors that you think will suit you best, and then map out each one to identify which among them can address all of your company’s requirements.
Price is always an important factor to consider. However, you do not have to always sacrifice quality of service for a low price. The important thing to be addressed is your internal needs and requirements. If you choose the right service provider for your company, paying a bit steeper price may not matter anymore since you will eventually earn it back with the huge returns that the marketing campaign promises.
Several big organizations have realized that email marketing is such a unique field and most traditional marketing practices just don’t keep up with the online world. So when it comes to choosing your email marketing provider, be sure to make the right decision for more successful years ahead.
Marketing through email has become a very popular way of marketing today. With the advent of the Internet, technology has broadened the scope and ways of marketing.
Email is short for electronic mail. This is one of the main reasons why people use the Internet. About two decades back, no one actually realized that electronic mail would become very useful and eventually be a focal point in relationships, both personal and business.
The whole email system lets people communicate with each other all the time. Early email marketers used the listings of email subscribers to be able to send their proposals and advertisements. However, not many people become amused with this fad. Sending unsolicited email or what we refer to as “spam” is a definite a “don’t” in email marketing. This article tries to give tips on how to effectively use email for marketing and how to use it properly.
Email marketing can make or break your reputation as a marketer and the reputation of the product which you are promoting. Here are some of the ways on how to do email marketing:
1. Integrate. Email marketing should be integrated into the whole marketing plan to promote a certain product effectively. Email marketing can be one of the ways and is not the only way to market a product. An array of marketing techniques should be employed by a marketer to be able to get around the market.
2. Build relationships first Getting into the email marketing bandwagon has its downsides, if it not done properly. People will get irritated if one floods a mailing list with advertisements which are not needed. In sending advertisements in e-groups or other such kinds of groups, one should be able to assess the general needs and concerns of the members before he actually plunge into a barrage of email marketing endeavors.
3. Information. Email marketing, is most effective if it is part of a wider marketing scheme. Email is at its best if it is used to spread useful information for the target audience. The body of the email should contain pertinent and updated information about the product or the service. Just like in any form of marketing, email marketing should be planned and executed with care.
4. Don’t send unsolicited email. One of the most irritating and agitating things about email is spam. If one is thinking about using spam mail to be able to market his product, he must give it a second thought. A lot of people hate unsolicited mail and usually won’t even open the message containing such messages. Spam will not only be a waste of time and effort from the part of the marketer, but will it will have an effect on the image of the product and the reputation of the marketer as well.
People avail of email services to be able to receive information and substantive mails from people whom they know or trust. The approach that an email marketing should be built in this line.
5. Service. There’s an impression that direct email marketing is done by promoters to be able to escape from certain realities that come along with other forms of marketing. The fear of rejection is one of these harsh realities that are avoided by using email as a marketing medium. To be able to get the attention and more importantly, to be recognized seriously, an email marketer must be able to follow up quickly on the requests of his prospects. Service is the only thing that can improve the first impression towards direct email marketing.
6. Permission. Spamming is not a good thing to do. It is also considered illegal in some states. However, when one asks permission from the receiver to send a marketing proposal through email, direct email marketing takes another step forward. A survey shows that people who were initially asked for permission to receive certain proposals were more interested to read the emails, as compared to the response towards unsolicited email.
Email is just one of the tools to be able to promote through the Internet, and by far, it is one of the most popular and most effective. There are a lot of unwritten rules towards doing direct email marketing but everything leads back to giving quality service to the prospects and clients.
The Internet has provided us with ways f bon how to market cost effectively. It has given virtual tools which can deliver hard results which can be comparable to the results that one can achieve using the more popular forms of marketing.
The electronic mail or “email” is one of the most effective and widely used tools in Internet marketing. Other people employ affiliate programs, links, free items and other gimmicks to market through the Internet, but most of these marketers have utilized email marketing in one instance or another.
Email provides a marketer with a whole new spectrum in using the Internet as a marketing medium. Millions of people now rely on email to receive information quickly. However, although email is a good way to market a certain product or a service, one should be cautious in using it to market. Ethics also apply to the use of Internet media to be able to convey a marketing message to a targeted audience.
This article tries to explain the different ins-and-outs in the world of email marketing. It also tries to give some tips and advises on how to properly use email as a marketing tool.
Let’s say that one has a great product that he wants to sell through the Internet. He had laid down the foundations such as the development of a website to be the portal on which he would receive orders and display much needed information about the product. The website contained attractive and sleek graphics and useful information. The only problem was, no one was visiting the website. Aside from employing other techniques for Internet viral marketing, he also tries email marketing in the hopes of getting hits and transforming these hits into sales.
Here are some tips on how one can effectively use email marketing to promote his product or service:
Join e-groups – There are a lot of groups out there which cater to a specific market. Millions of mailing lists and e-groups have been established and these can be used by the marketer to be able to instantly put his target market into the bag.
One must be patient enough not to plunge into email marketing errors which can destroy his reputation and eventually his product’s image in the eyes of his target audience.
He can join these so-called e-groups but must try his best to get a general feeling about the dealings that happen in these groups. This is a kind of market infiltration. He can make himself known first by posting some short comments about the topics which are discussed in the group and try to build a rapport with the other members. He can eventually tell, through time, when it is appropriate to post his advertisement through the mailing list.
Write attractively – Using email marketing methods allow one to be able to convey sufficient amount of information about his product so as to entice the receivers to avail of the product. In writing advertisements through email, one must be diligent in making the final output readable and interesting.
The first part of the email should catch the attention of the reader. This can be compared to the heading of a press release or any kind of article for that matter. The first lines should contain the basics of what one is trying to say to the reader. Sufficient information about the product should be present in the email. The body of the letter should contain information which would answer the “four-W’s” about the product. The reader should then be enticed to act upon the request of the letter. The letter should bring about enthusiasm about the product and lead people to actually visit the seller’s website and click the “add to cart” icon.
SPAM – This is the basic rule of the ethics of email marketing – never send spam! Spam is a term that is used to depict unsolicited email. Spam mails are not only irritating, they eat up much needed email space and restrict more important emails from landing into the inbox. If one would compare real junk mail from spam email, one would conclude that spam emails are more irritating and agitating than the normal ones. The physical commercial-type junk mail can easily be disposed and does not require too much of an effort from the receiver. Spam email eats up space which is being paid for by the email subscriber and is intended for legitimate emails.
These are just some of the basics of email marketing. No matter what one does in email marketing, he should never ever send spam. They do not only dent the reputation of the sender as a marketer, they also dent the reputation of the product which the marketer is promoting. Overall, email marketing can be a potential way of effectively marketing a product, but it is not without rules and ethics.
