Email has revolutionised business communications over recent
years and has rightly earned the label of the Killer Application
of the Internet. The use of email marketing has had a similar
and profound impact for companies looking to promote their
products and services.
It has been especially powerful for small and medium sized
businesses (SMEs). Without the marketing budgets of larger
organisations, SMEs nevertheless have the same requirements for
a cost effective, successful and measurable method of
communicating with their customers. Email marketing offers not
only this but can be used in every element of the marketing
process, from building your brand, driving traffic to your
website or marketing special offers, to providing customer
service or technical support.
But just why does email marketing offer such possibilities to
small business and, indeed, organisations of all sizes? Below
are outlined 8 reasons why email marketing has to sit right at
the top of every SME's marketing activities checklist.
1. Successful
First and foremost, email marketing produces results! A well
designed campaign using a properly managed mailing list will
give response rates which are much higher than other direct
marketing methods.
While there are many variables that contribute to response
rates, indications are that overall email marketing gains a
response rate about 5 times higher than direct mail. By getting
a much larger percentage of people interested in what you are
offering, immediately you are massively increasing the number of
potential sales. Added to this, the quick response methods allow
a much faster turnaround of questions and objections thus
clearing a way through to closing the sale.
Even though the unacceptable rise in Spam has had a detrimental
effect on the proper commercial use of emails in marketing, the
success levels of well run, targeted and fully compliant
campaigns using full opt-in lists continue to advance in leaps
and bounds. Effectively, whatever your goal, email marketing
delivers in a way that few , if any, direct marketing methods
can match.
2. Targeted
The more targeted your marketing message is, the more likely it
is to be successful. Email marketing provides the means of
customising each message which is sent out, so that the
information, promotion or offer can be individually personalised
and targeted.
Effectively, using targeted HTML emails gives you the
opportunity to quickly and easily tailor the message to directly
respond to each prospect's own needs and interests. Results
consistently also show that the more you can personalise your
messages, the higher your response and conversion rates will be.
In many respects, a well run email campaign makes the concept of
"one to one marketing" available to all, because of the way that
it is perfectly suited to segmentation and personalisation.
Whereas printed mailers are created, printed and fixed, with
email marketing you remain in control of the process for longer
giving you more flexibility both in the overall approach and
offering.
3. Economic and Cost Effective
Email marketing eliminates the significant time and expense of
full graphic design, printing, postage, handling and so on which
is associated with printing and processing traditional direct
mail campaigns. Yet with graphic html emails, you are able to
create the same imagery and provoke the same responses with the
added benefit of having follow up information instantly
available via your website.
Perhaps just as importantly, with the correct maintenance of an
email list, the cost benefits increase as does the ROI through
the closer relationship established with the recipients. Coupled
with the higher response rates that email marketing attracts,
you therefore get more positive responses, more quickly and at a
lower unit cost! Win - win situation!
4. Trackable
When using email marketing, you can track the results of your
campaign in real time thus providing you with instant feedback
on its success. This allows you to respond to developments as
they happen and to follow up while the campaign is still in
progress.
For each message, you can see whether:
* it was received successfully;
* it was opened and read;
* the recipient used the links in it to reach your site.
There are two immediate benefits of this level of information:
firstly, it puts you in a position to be able to make changes to
a campaign already underway to improve its response rate;
secondly, when sending out follow up messages, you have the
possibility to segment your mail list according to the action
taken on receipt of the initial one. This allows you to respond
immediately to any issues which arise and to complete the
feedback loop quickly and effectively.
Moving forward, you also have a complete record of those
elements and links which worked best for you and those which
require changes to improve their performance. The experiences
taken from the campaign can then be applied to future campaigns
with a high degree of accuracy.
5. Measurable
As the adage goes, "If you can't measure it, then you can't
manage it" and measuring the success of your marketing spend is
more important today than ever. To make best use of your budget,
it is essential to keep track of not only the costs but also the
results and the revenue that the campaign specifically
generates. This will allow you to focus your activities with the
most appropriate methods in future.
In addition to tracking the recipients' reaction to the email,
you can also follow their subsequent path through your website,
with the appropriate software. This allows excellent visibility
as to the success of the landing page and the anticipated route
through to the purchase or sign-up page, according to your
campaign's objectives.
Together, this information is invaluable when planning future
campaigns or being able to precisely calculate the costs and
sales generated by any email marketing activity that you
undertake. Hopefully, the ROI (Return on Investment) you achieve
will be as good as the campaigns run by companies which have
reported ROI rates 40 times higher than those achieved with
direct mail!
6. Testable
To achieve the best possible response rates, it is common
practice to send any intended piece of marketing material to
sample groups to test its effectiveness before starting the main
campaign. With traditional direct marketing, this process can be
time consuming and costly.
However, with email marketing, this process is fast and
effective with results available almost immediately, thanks to
the instant measuring of the results. Additionally, as there is
no printed material involved, the turnaround for any changes in
layout or wording required as a result can be incorporated into
the main mailing quickly and easily.
7. Immediate
The speed at which business happens is constantly increasing.
Email marketing allows you not only to keep pace with these
changes but stay ahead of them, not only in terms of the speed
of response to the campaign but also the creation of the
campaign itself.
Firstly, the "Call to Action" can be immediate and ideally
handled through the website. When you read a compelling offer in
an email you can respond using the links in the message itself,
usually taking you to a specially created page with additional
information and recommendations. Responding to a direct mail
piece, on the other hand, requires a much more active response,
such as completing and sending off a form or even just picking
up the phone. Just as importantly, the responses start to come
back immediately! On average, 80% of the responses happen within
3 days as opposed to the weeks which is more normal for
traditional direct mail.
Secondly, the creation and distribution of the email campaign is
also much quicker. Carefully constructing, producing and sending
a good html email which is going to bring the top level results,
need only take a matter of days (or indeed hours if you are
working with a supportive partner!) rather than weeks for a
printed mailer.
8. Flexible & Adaptable
Email marketing is adaptable enough to support your business in
many different ways and can help to achieve a variety of
different goals. While email marketing is often considered
stronger when you are looking to maintain customer relationships
rather than forge new ones, it is in fact able to fulfil a
variety of different purposes for your business. Some of these
are:
* Increase the number of visitors to your website
* Attract new clients, leads or registrations
* Build stronger relationships with existing clients
* Provide improved levels of company, product or service
information
* Build brand awareness
These goals can be achieved through the use of emails to
distribute different items, each offering different
opportunities for strengthening the relationship with the
company's customers. Some of the more common ones include:
* Sales promotions / vouchers
* Account statements
* Company Newsletters
* Press Releases
* Product Announcements
Summary
Email marketing is in itself an excellent method of
communicating and distributing information and an essential part
of an integrated marketing strategy. Like all marketing methods,
it is most influential when used in conjunction with other media
with the result that the sum of the parts being more powerful
than the individual parts themselves.
With the use of RSS feeds and blogs gaining greater acceptance
as corporate communications media, there will undoubtedly
prophets of doom announcing the imminent demise of the use of
email marketing as a tool for the future. The astute marketer
will, however, develop these up and coming channels alongside
their email marketing program and so be ideally placed to offer
our customers the information they require by the method they
prefer.
About the author:
"Emarketing" Mark White is an emarketing specialist working
primarily with small and medium sized companies in the UK. For
help with Search Engine Marketing, Email Marketing, Business
Blogging and online business development, visit Rosetta Alba Emarketing Services or his blog at eMarketingMark.com
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