Email Marketing

Electronic mail is the elemental means of communication for the Internet age. It is simple, easy to use, and accessed by the majority of Internet users. While Internet marketing practitioners today harness a variety of different tools including website optimisation, pay per click, affiliate marketing and online media buying, marketing by electronic mail remains one of the simplest business communication methods available.

Electronic mail (email or e-mail for short) is a simple store-and-forward method of exchanging messages over the Internet by utilizing the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, or SMTP. Since its origins in the 1960s, email has come to dominate communications in cyberspace. Business communications specialists and direct snail mail marketers took with ease to email marketing as copywriters honed their skills to adapt to the revolutionary new technology.

The inherent ease of sending email has contributed to the explosive worldwide growth of email marketing, with millions of commercial email messages sent across the globe every day. Although some messages may be solicited, the majority remains unsolicited commercial email known as spam. Most developed countries have strict laws governing email marketing to ensure that customers’ inboxes do not get inundated with unwanted messages.

Email marketing is a marketing technique offering rapid message delivery and a low cost per message. However, email marketing involves a significant amount of research and database management skills. An email marketer must be well versed in multiple IT skills that entail more than just being able to type and send email messages. Maintaining millions of records about willing recipients is no easy task. Organizing email addresses into those willing to receive emails and those wanting to opt out is in itself a specialized, technical process.

Designing the email is one of the most important aspects of email marketing. Creating a good email message is very different from designing a website. The email recipient does not usually have the time or patience to go through a message the way he/she can read an online web page. The act of reading email differs from active web browsing in the sense that the former is a response to an action initiated by the sender. The customer’s initial interest level is thus lower than that witnessed during active browsing or searching. This is the primary reason that the message must take precedence over any design or aesthetic considerations. The message must be clearly stated at the top of the email so it is the first thing the reader sees.

Once the email is sent, it must be tracked. Sophisticated web and analytic technologies come into play as the feedback from different areas of the message is gathered and interpreted for business managers. Comprehensive data about which recipients clicked where is gathered and converted into business intelligence that can allow managers to further hone and enhance their marketing strategies.

When planned and executed correctly, an email marketing strategy can accrue great financial rewards for a business. While learning curves and setup costs are significant, email marketing is an increasingly effective selling system in the modern age.

Broadcasting information about offers and business operations to targeted audiences can cause high rates of conversion, and the feedback from customers is discrete and targeted. Email marketing can thus prove to be one of the most formidable tools in the marketing arsenal of an online business.