Email Marketing

E-mail marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every e-mail sent to a potential or current customer could be considered e-mail marketing. However, the term is usually used to refer to:

sending e-mails with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or previous customers and to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business

sending e-mails with the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately,

adding advertisements to e-mails sent by other companies to their customers, and

sending e-mails over the Internet, as e-mail did and does exist outside the Internet

Advantages of E-Mail Marketing

E-mail marketing (on the Internet) is popular with companies for several reasons:

A mailing list provides 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, e-mail is less expensive.

An exact return on investment can be tracked ("track to basket") and has proven to be high when done properly. E-mail marketing is often reported as second only to search marketing as the most effective online marketing tactic.

The delivery time for an e-mail message is short (i.e., seconds or minutes) as compared to a mailed advertisement (i.e., one or more days).

An advertiser is able to "push" the message to its audience, as opposed to website-based advertising, which relies on a customer to visit that website.

E-mail messages are easy to track. An advertiser can track users via autoresponders, web bugs, bounce messages, unsubscribe requests, read receipts, click-throughs, etc. These mechanisms can be used to measure open rates, positive or negative responses, and to correlate sales with marketing.

Advertisers can generate repeat business affordably and automatically.

Advertisers can reach substantial numbers of e-mail subscribers who have opted in (i.e., consented) to receive e-mail communications on subjects of interest to them.

Over half of Internet users check or send e-mail on a typical day.

Specific types of interaction with messages can trigger (1) other messages to be delivered automatically, or (2) other events, such as updating the profile of the recipient to indicate a specific interest category.

E-mail marketing is paper-free (i.e., "green").

CAN-SPAN Compliance

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 authorizes a US$11,000 penalty per violation for spamming each individual recipient. Therefore, many commercial e-mail marketers within the United States utilize a service or special software to ensure compliance with the Act. A variety of older systems exist that do not ensure compliance with the Act. To comply with the Act's regulation of commercial e-mail, 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 that may not have given valid permission.

In addition to satisfying legal requirements, e-mail service providers began to help customers establish and manage their own e-mail marketing campaigns. The service providers supply e-mail templates and general best practices [6], as well as methods for handling subscriptions and cancellations automatically. They also provide statistics pertaining to the number of messages received and opened, and whether the recipients clicked on any links within the messages.

Opt-in Email advertising

Opt-in e-mail advertising, or permission marketing, is a method of advertising via e-mail whereby the recipient of the advertisement has consented to receive it. This method is one of several developed by marketers to eliminate the disadvantages of e-mail marketing.

Opt-in e-mail marketing may evolve into a technology that uses a handshake protocol between the sender and receiver. This system is intended to eventually result in a high degree of satisfaction between consumers and marketers. If opt-in e-mail advertising is used, the material that is e-mailed 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. Ideally, opt-in e-mail advertisements will be more personal and relevant to the consumer than untargeted advertisements.

A common example of permission marketing is a newsletter sent to an advertising firm's customers. Such newsletters inform customers of 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 the newsletter.

With a foundation of opted-in contact information stored in their database, marketers can send out promotional materials automatically. They can also segment their promotions to specific market segments.

Opt-in also allows the recipient to remove their name from the e-mail list and not receive any further correspondence.