As discussed in one of my previous blogs, there are many potential benefits to utilising an email campaign as a digital marketing tactic for your business: ability to measure its success, targeting and time saving to name a few. When considering any new marketing venture, it is important to think about the benefits, costs and negatives before investing time and money. But what are the potential drawbacks when it comes to email marketing?

1. Client relationships

A well written, useful email has the potential to strengthen an existing relationship with customers, or to initiate a call to action for new customers, but a carelessly written email could damage these relationships with your clients. Some people will be less than appreciative of having their inbox filled with countless emails from different businesses, and may become tired of receiving emails that could be considered spam. Some useful tips for creating and maintaining client relationships through email marketing can be found here.

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2. Reliability

Because of the number of emails that many people receive on a day to day basis, many customers will simply delete your email as unimportant before even taking the time to read it, meaning that future emails will end up in the ‘junk’ inbox. Furthermore, using a bulk emailing programme increases the risk of your email being filtered into the ‘junk’ inbox of recipients before ever reaching their main inbox, meaning it will be very unlikely that the email will be seen. Here are some great tips for avoiding the ‘junk’ inbox. The reliability of this method of marketing can also vary because even if people do open your email, there is no guarantee that they will read on or click-through meaning that response rates can vary.

3. Preferences

Individual customers will have preferences for different kinds of content, offers and frequency which will effect their likeliness to engage with and respond to your email. This could mean that there is a lot of market research and trial and error required to perfect the kind of content that your customers will be interested in. Even after perfecting your content based on research, it is impossible to cater for every recipients likes and dislikes meaning that there will always be a struggle with customers un-subscribing.

4. Renderability

With all of the different platforms and devices available through which customers can access their emails, it is a challenge for businesses to ensure that their marketing emails will look good wherever they are opened. This will, therefore, require a significantly higher time investment into testing how the emails will look on each platform to ensure that recipients are able to open and read your content, and access images. If people are unable to read your email, and if it doesn’t look good, on their chosen platform then you are unlikely to get the desired response for your business. Check out some statistics below showing the variety of devices used to open emails:

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Overall, email marketing is fast becoming an old tactic, becoming replaced by newer methods such as social media meaning that the effectiveness of this channel is not the same as it once was. Social media provides a less invasive channel to engage with customers and provide them with information (Chaffey, 2012). It is therefore important to consider your target market and resources, as well as consider the positives and negatives of each method, in order to better decide which marketing methods are best for your business. This is not to say, however, that email marketing is ineffective if executed correctly: and can still prove to be a strong marketing tactic for your company.

Check out these sources for more information:

Advantages & Disadvantage of Using Email Campaign

Pros & Cons of Email Marketing

5 Drawbacks of Email Marketing

Advantages & Disadvantages of Email Marketing

References:

Chaffey, D. and Ellis-Chadwick, F. (2012) ‘Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practise’. [Online] < http://lib.myilibrary.com.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/Open.aspx?id=399626 > [Accessed 30/4/16]