What
is email marketing? Basically the use of email to promote products
and/or services. But a better email marketing definition is the use of
email to develop relationships with potential customers and/or clients.
Email marketing is one segment of internet marketing, which encompasses
online marketing via websites, social media, blogs, etc. It is
essentially the same as direct mail except that instead of sending mail
through the postal service, messages are sent electronically via email.
Much
of the spam email we all get proclaiming 'deals' on this, and that is a
good example of email marketing at its worst; the mindless email
barrage.
Someone
somewhere buys an email list (or several!) and sends an email along the
lines of “Get (the product name) for only (the amount) to everyone on
the list – sometimes repeatedly. All this does is annoy everyone and
give email marketing a bad name.
At
its best, email marketing allows businesses to keep their customers
informed and tailor their marketing messages to their customers.
Email Marketing Can Be Personalized
Particular
groups of customers can be targeted or even individuals. Offering
individual customers special deals on merchandise and/or services on the
customer's birthday, for instance, is one example of email marketing
personalization. (A restaurant might send an email to customers on their
birthday offering 50% off an entree,) Email marketing helps a business
develop and maintain a relationship with a customer over time that
hopefully results in increased sales and increased customer loyalty.
Email
marketing best practices include developing your own email list rather
than buying an email list(s) and making participation in your email list
opt-in rather than opt-out (using permission-based email marketing).
Email should also be optimized for mobile usage as according to
statistics over half of emails are opened on mobile devices.
