- Sending emails with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or old customers and to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business.
- Sending emails with the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing old customers to buy something immediately.
- Adding advertisements in emails sent by other companies to their customers.
- Emails that are being sent on the Internet (Email did and does exist outside the Internet, Network Email, FIDO etc.)
Advantages
Email marketing (on the Internet) is popular with companies
because:
- The advantage of a mailing list is clearly the ability to distribute information to a wide range of specific, potential customers at a relatively low cost.
- Compared to other media investments such as direct mail or printed newsletters, it is less expensive.
- An exact Return on investment can be tracked ("track to basket") and has proven to be high when done properly. Email marketing is often reported as second only to search marketing as the most effective online marketing tactic.
- It is instant, as opposed to a mailed advertisement, an email arrives in a few seconds or minutes.
- It lets the advertiser "push" the message to its audience, as opposed to a website that waits for customers to come in.
- It is easy to track. An advertiser can track users via web bugs, bounce messages, un-subscribes, read-receipts, click-throughs, etc. These can be used to measure open rates, positive or negative responses, correlate sales with marketing.
- Advertisers can generate repeat business affordably and automatically
- Advertisers can reach substantial numbers of email subscribers who have opted in (consented) to receive email communications on subjects of interest to them
- Over half of Internet users check or send email on a typical day.
- Specific types of interaction with messages can trigger other messages to be automatically delivered.
- Specific types of interaction with messages can trigger other events such as updating the profile of the recipient to indicate a specific interest category.
- Green - email marketing is paper-free
Disadvantages
Many companies
use email marketing to communicate with existing customers,
but many other companies send unsolicited bulk email, also
known as spam.
Illicit email marketing antedates legitimate email
marketing, since on the early Internet (see Arpanet) it was
not permitted to use the medium for commercial purposes. As
a result, marketers attempting to establish themselves as
legitimate businesses in email marketing have had an uphill
battle, hampered also by criminal spam operations billing
themselves as legitimate.
It is frequently difficult for observers to distinguish
between legitimate and spam email marketing. First off,
spammers attempt to represent themselves as legitimate
operators, obfuscating the issue. Second, direct-marketing
political groups such as the U.S. Direct Marketing
Association (DMA) have pressured legislatures to legalize
activities which many Internet operators consider to be
spamming, such as the sending of "opt-out" unsolicited
commercial email. Third, the sheer volume of spam email has
led some users to mistake legitimate commercial email (for
instance, a mailing list to which the user subscribed) for
spam — especially when the two have a similar appearance, as
when messages include HTML and flashy graphics.
Due to the volume of spam email on the Internet, spam
filters are essential to most users. Some marketers report
that legitimate commercial emails frequently get caught by
filters, and hidden; however, it is somewhat less common for
email users to complain that spam filters block legitimate
mail.
Companies considering an email marketing program must make
sure that their program does not violate spam laws such as
the United States' CAN-SPAM Act (Controlling the Assault of
Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act), the European
Privacy & Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 or
their Internet provider's acceptable use policy. Even if a
company follows the law, if Internet mail administrators
find that it is sending spam it is likely to be listed in
blacklists such as SPEWS.
CAN-SPAM compliance
Because the
CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 authorizes a USD 11,000 penalty per
violation for spamming each individual recipient, many
commercial email marketers within the United States utilize
a service or special software that helps ensure compliance
with the Act. A variety of older systems exist which do not
ensure compliance with the Act. To comply with the Act's
regulation of commercial email, services typically: require
users to authenticate their return address and include a
valid physical address, provide a one-click unsubscribe
feature, and prohibit importing lists of purchased addresses
which may not have given valid permission.
In addition to satisfying legal requirements, service
providers stepped in to help customers to set up and manage
their own email marketing campaigns. The services provide
email templates, automatically handle subscriptions and
removals, and generate statistics on how many messages were
received and opened, and whether the recipients clicked on
any links within the messages.
Opt-in email advertising
Opt-in email
advertising or permission marketing is a method of
advertising by electronic mail wherein the recipient of the
advertisement has consented to receive it. It is one of
several ways developed by marketers to eliminate the
disadvantages of email marketing.
Email has become a very popular mode of communication across
the world. It has also become extremely popular to advertise
through. Some of the many advantages of advertising through
email are the direct contact with the consumer and is
“inexpensive, flexible, and simple to implement” (Fairhead,
2003). There are also disadvantages attached to email
advertising such as, alienating the consumer because of
overload to messages or the advertisement getting deleted
without getting read.
Permission email marketing may evolve into a technology that
uses a handshake protocol between sender and receiver
(Fairhaed, 2003). This system is intended to eventually
result in a high degree of satisfaction between consumers
and marketers. If opt-in email advertising is used, the
material that is emailed to consumers will be “anticipated.”
It is assumed that the consumer wants to receive it, which
makes it unlike unsolicited advertisements sent to the
consumer (often referred to as spam). Ideally, opt-in email
advertisements will be more personal and relevant to the
consumer than untargetted advertisements.
A common example of permission marketing is a newsletter
sent to a firm’s customers. Newsletters like this are a way
to let customers know about upcoming events or promotions,
or new products. In this type of advertising, a company that
wants to send a newsletter to their customers may ask them
at the point of purchase if they would like to receive this
newsletter.
With a foundation of opted-in contact information stored in
a database, marketers can automatically send out promotional
materials. The marketers can also segment their promotions
to specific market segments.
Other Ways to Increase Trafics.