What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is just exactly what the term implies—a marketing message that is sent to customers or potential customers through email. It could be said that virtually all emails you send to your customers fall under the category of email marketing, but the term has been a little more narrowly defined over the past few years, and now email marketing can be described in the following categories: 1) direct email, which describes an advertisement sent via email for the sole purpose of promoting a service or product; 2) transactional emails, which refers to those emails that come as a result of a customer’s interaction with the company (confirmation of an order, for example), and 3) email newsletters, which are those that are sent out on a regular basis and intended to form long-term relationships with customers.
Why Should a Company Use Email Marketing?
While you may be somewhat familiar with email marketing, whether it’s from a sender’s or a receiver’s perspective, what you may not know is how the popularity of this type of marketing has grown over the past few years. By some estimates, companies spent over $1.5 billion dollars in email marketing during 2011 alone, and that number is expected to rise to well over $2 billion within the next three or four years. Email marketing has become increasingly popular with businesses of all sizes and for good reason.
One obvious advantage is the number of people that you can reach through email that you might not otherwise be able to. Let’s face it, email has become a huge part of our lives, and the vast majority of people check their email at least once a day. And while there have been issues with some marketing emails being rejected by Internet service providers, “opt-in” email advertising—where recipients consent to receiving a sender’s email—are making this much less of a concern.
Another advantage is the cost, or the lack thereof! Just think about how expensive it is to create and send promotional material through “snail mail,” not to mention the outrageous cost of advertising in newspapers and magazines. Email marketing is fast, easy and inexpensive.
And last (but certainly not least), unlike many other marketing techniques, it’s easy to track a return on investment with email marketing.
All things considered, it’s easy to see how your company’s marketing efforts could quickly fall behind those of your competitors’ if you don’t use the power of email to market your products or services.
How NuArtisan Can Help
At NuArtisan, we can help develop a marketing strategy specifically for your company. Our marketing professionals will discuss the advantages and disadvantages to different types of email marketing and help you decide what’s best for your business. We’ve worked with clients from many different industries, so we understand what’s most effective and what’s not. Talk to us today about the power of email marketing!