Email marketing has been around now for some time. And it is a hugely popular way to stay connected to your customers. Still, many businesses have not yet began to utilize this marketing tool. Lets discuss some of the main reasons why email marketing is an effective, powerful, and yet economically and environmentally sound choice.
I recently had a client who did a traditional mailing campaign. We designed a mailer to advertise some of their latest specials, and had 500 printed. We then mailed them out to a zip code mailing list. Did people respond? Now that is the big question here, without directly asking each new customer that came along, there really was no way of knowing how effective the mailer had been. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is definitely a place for printed mailing campaigns. And they have been proven to work, depending of course on the design, and who you are sending them to. But, that brings me to one of the biggest benefits to Email marketing.
When you send out an Email newsletter, assuming you are using an established Email marketing system, and not just emailing from your email account, you are provided several useful features. One of them being the email report. In this report, you can see results like, how many people opened the email, what time they opened it, how many times they opened it, which links they clicked, if they forwarded it to a friend, etc. You can also see if they marked your email as spam, or unsubscribed from your emailing list. With this kind of feedback, you know exactly how effective your campaign was, which people you might want to call, and interestingly, which types of further emails you should send to people. For example, if John Smith clicks on “Save 20% on Mens clothing” and Jill clicks on “Jewelry”, you could use that information to send them further future emails on just those topics, knowing that you may very well have future sales, in their individual areas of interest. There really are so many things you can learn from the report data, that we can’t possibly go through each one, but know that a major difference between traditional print and mail techniques, and Email marketing, is that you easily and immediately collect feedback on your campaign’s effectiveness.
since you are able to brand your email blasts just like the rest of your marketing materials, make sure you do it
Another aspect is that you can brand the style of your email blast very closely to your existing web site brand. If you’ve read one of our other articles on branding, you’ll know why it is so important. But in a nutshell, everything you present to your clients should always look like it came from your company “brand”. Often, I see companies who actually have a very nice established brand, logo, color scheme, etc. Then they are sending emails out that perhaps have their logo, but it really does not have the same cohesive style as their web site, brochure, business cards, etc. This, in a way, defeats some of the efforts to develop a brand. It also takes away from some of the credibility that they achieve by building that brand. So, just remember that since you are able to brand your email blasts just like the rest of your marketing materials, make sure you do it. The time it takes to design an email blast template, will be well worth the added credibility and response you receive with each future blast.
What about the economical aspect of email marketing? With the economic pressure growing more each day, small to large businesses are having to account for every dollar spent. Also, while most businesses know that they need to market, it can be difficult to justify the cost. The mailing campaign I mentioned at the outset had cost somewhere around $1 – $1.25 per mailer. It looked great, and it a measure of success, but in comparison with the cost of an Email blast, it looses some of its charm. It is difficult to give a generalized number, since there are many companies out there, but I can tell you that our cost for an Email blast can be as little as $0.4 per email address. So you figure if you send that blast to 500 people, the cost would then be $20. This excludes any design or database setup fees, but I think you get the point that Email blasts can be very economical.
This is not to mention that you are literally saving trees and helping the environment, when you choose an Email blast over a print campaign, you are choosing a much “greener” alternative.
So, after considering just some of the benefits of Email marketing, I’m sure you are eager to begin. Why not start by giving us a call and lets talk about it. More and more companies are utilizing this powerful sales tool. You should be the next.