Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and E-mail Marketing (EMM) is becoming the latest sort out marketing tool for companies because of the increasing cost of print and broadcast marketing. E-Mail Marketing is rapidly emerging as significant advertising industry. It is increasingly getting preference as cost effective medium for reaching, targeting, and selling to businesses and consumers. Internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo! have proved this to businesses worldwide, as well as their investors have started utilizing SEM and E-mail marketing thereby generating a healthy profit. Companies and organizations are always in search for a medium to save money and reduce advertising budgets. This objective could be certainly achieved to a great extent by E-mail marketing, as it saves time and resources for retailers and wholesaler by sending electronic messages in a timely order, to their in-house customers.
STRATEGIES FOR E-MAIL MARKETING
As other marketing tools, for E-mail marketing, certain strategies have to be followed to ensure its success for a business venture. Actual sale is made on the web site, but e-mail is the method that brings the targeted customers to the web site. Principal required to be followed for successful e-mail marketing are as follows
Never SPAM
It is necessary to make sure that the business e-mail is not considered a SPAM. If emails are send to people who have indicated that they want to receive the information through e-mail marketing then the response rate would be much higher. But if in case the customers have not given PERMISSION to email them, it's SPAM. And if you get added to a SPAM "blacklist", the email address of the company would be automatically filtered from major ISP servers, thus proving to be a loss for the business.
Collection of address in proper order
It is advisable to use permission marketing techniques where the customers are asked to be added to a list, or willingly give their email address as a return for a service provided to them, and for which it is indicated that they will receive regular emails .This would ensure that the clients who are receiving the e-mail are those who willfully are there and the risk of losing the clients would minimize. It would generate appreciation from the customers; enhance the responses and no angry negative or furious responses from the customer side.
Contact details to be given
The company doing e-mail marketing should provide the customers their e-mail address/toll free contact number so that the access to company becomes easy for readers as well as it adds to creditability and reliability. As when people read business emails, they might have questions, concerns, and want to know more about the products and services or may even want to give positive feedback, so such contact details are essential.
Provision for the website link
In every e-mail a clearly defined website link should be provided even if it is a customer survey. Thus facilitating communication. For example a free link to company's newsletter or e-book could be provided.
Usage of proper grammar
Good and correct use of language has great importance in e-mail marketing. Customers do notice the quality of language used in e-mail letters and create an image for the company. That image in their mind would rise or fall based on the quality of communications. The customers would notice the difference. Good language as well as proper grammar usage would be perceived as extremely professional.
Be honest
Honesty is the best policy for email marketing. Don't try to "trick" customers into opening emails instead try to get them curious, and state clearly a benefit that the email would provide them with. This would create a "win-win" situation as they will feel that they have received real, honest help, and the company as maintained positive contact with them. If the trust of the customer is once established it becomes very easy to sell the products or services through e-mail marketing.
Special e-mail formatting for new customers
A welcome campaign for new list customers is a great way to develop good professional e-mail relationships. Specially created messages for new customers should be created and sent for the first 30,60 to 90 days. This special treatment would make newest recipients feel special, and it would create a strong positive impression that ensures emails being read carefully and would be considered.
Polite approach
Always use polite catchy lines, not lines that have a hard-hitting selling approach You may even get grateful mail back in return and win a new loyal customer The key trick is to treat the e-mails as real human beings and give them look of courteous, polite behavioured person. Here the main aim is that the customer should remember the e-mail after closing it also. It is advisable to thank customers who ask for more information in the auto-responders. Make them feel that client service is on the top priority list for the company and appreciate them for their response.
Perfect timing
Customers want e-mail right after they have asked for it and are thinking about it. It is better to contact when the matter is still fresh in their minds. Delay in response could result in partial or total disinterest. Therefore timing of a message in relation to an action has to be perfect. Interest of the recipient in receiving messages plays nearly as big a role in deciding when to send an email as relevancy and value.
Follow up e-mail
It is essential to do follow up for the previous e-mails sent to the customers. Post selling mails as purchase or service e-mail should be done. Ask for their feedback on the product or service, are they satisfied with the product/service, was the product delivered on time, was the post sales service satisfactory, and also ask for suggestions if any they would like to provide to better the service.
ADVANTAGES OF E-MAIL MARKETING
.Even if you are out of office or on a vacation, e-mail can be scheduled to send so in your absence also e-mail marketing would be continued 24/7,365 days a year.
.International customers could also be reached easily and effectively, so there is no geographic barrier. E-mail marketing is most cost effective time saving marketing tool to reach out to global customers.
.Executing an email campaign is the simplest process and it can be done even sitting at home without any widespread resources.
.Every email is stored automatically saving precious time and resources, thus records could be kept with ease.
.It becomes easier to keep track records of the genuinely interested candidates and short list them as e-mails contain opt-in and opt-out options.
.Highly personalized: Email facilitates to personalize and greet every targeted customer, hence helps in creating a special bond with them.
.Mail loop gives attractive looking templates to use for the newsletter; it looks friendlier to the subscribers.
.E-mail marketing generates faster response here earliest response is the day itself when the e-mail was done, or 1 to 3 days whereas direct mail is burdensome and time consuming. A person can immediately response to e-mail.
.Specialized tools are available that accurately measure click-through rate, conversion rate, how a person one arrived at your website, and more so that it helps to evaluate success of different email campaigns.
.Interactive: You can innovatively initiate campaigns using graphics, videos, music, quiz, game or whatever that will be of interest to your prospect, to grab his attention and interest immediately. It is highly interactive marketing tool. It is easy to grab the attention and interest of the customer by usage of different marketing gimmicks like music, quiz, videos, animation, pictures, etc.
.By using e-mail marketing software, the e-mails can be kept safe from SPAM, blacklists or filters.
DISADVANTAGES OF E-MAIL MARKETING
.E-mail marketing has its own set of disadvantages, if there is overload of e-mail in inbox there are chances that the e-mail or advertisement gets deleted without being read.
.If the customers see e-mail of text format of lengthy URL they might feel that it is trying to sell them something and immediately delete the email.
.HTML email files could be sizable and take up a lot of space as a result sometimes the recipients do not have enough space which could yield undesirable output; this is because of use of lots of images or graphics.
.There is also the fear of foreign viruses being sent through e-mail, so sometimes if an alien e-mail address is seen people could hesitate even to open them and immediately delete that.
.Virtually every email sent goes through a number of computers before it reaches the inbox of the intended receiver and along the way there is a distinct possibility that an individual could hack into the email and read it. Therefore it is important to have bullet proof password.
ADDED TIPS
.To greet the recipient by their first name even in subject line.
.To publish the e-mail and abide it by a strict privacy policy.
.Make ensure that customers don't misconstrue message as SPAM.
.Messages should be targeted and personalized.
.The companies should be well prepared with their E-mail marketing messages as search engines play major role in B2B purchases.
Thus for effective e-mail marketing create an email list, keep expanding it, and use it to bring customers back to the web site, where it becomes easy to convince them that the product, the service, and the value are outstanding. E-mail marketing is the latest and happening marketing tool for present business scenario worldwide. Certain precautions and strategies could result in increased sales and better customer satisfaction. If basic rules of email marketing are overlooked then it could lead to drive others away from your list, and the "unsubscribe" button will be clicked on all often.
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