‘Anticipated, Personal and Relevant advertising always does better than unsolicited junk’ –Seth Godin, 2008. In the current digital phenomena, email is more of a practical tool which has been used for decades.
I think it is right to say that the internet and mostly importantly email has taken the world by storm. Nowadays, communicating with someone on the other side of the world seems and is pretty simple. Businesses have learnt to embrace this tool and now know how to change the way they market their company. Email marketing has resulted to businesses building a strong, trustworthy and interactive relationship with its existing and potential new customers. But does it really work and is it effective? We look at two aspects: one, the types of email marketing used by and why they use it and two and mostly importantly, if it works for you as a customer.
Email marketing is effectively sending email messages to a list of potential or existing customers with information as a way to promote the products and services your business provides (Truex, 2015). As a company, why would you use it? Well, the simple answer is that email does not require major technology and can be effectively monitored, is secure, low cost and has the ability to work across a range and a vast majority of platforms (Rospigliosi, 2015).
When devising plans for email marketing communications, marketers need to plan for two types of email marketing (Chaffey et al., 2009):
- Outbound email marketing –This is where email campaigns are used as a form of direct marketing to encourage trial and purchases as a part of a CRM dialogues (e.g. opt-in emails, vouchers, discounts etc.);
- Inbound email marketing – This is where emails from customers are managed (e.g. customer enquiries, endorsements etc.).
A report from ‘The Pew Internet & American Life Project’ by Madden in 2003 shows that emailing is the number one internet activity. More than 90% of internet users use email to communicate with family, friends and colleagues. Most companies use it internally and externally to communicate with stakeholders such as its customers, staff, suppliers etc. As a company, using email is something that is low cost, easy to use and as a platform, allows companies to reach a wider and more global audience just as we know it today.
Companies can use email marketing to their advantage IF used correctly. As simple as it is to set up and send out emails to customers both old and new, you must do it right. This may potentially be the first time your customer is seeing the company’s branding outside the store and will need reassurance of the security of their personal details etc. to ensure that they are kept interested and engaged.
To build that customer relationship, a company must learn and understand how often they should send emails, what the email should say and what time of day they should send customers the emails. Remember the key is to keep us wanting more. Now, we’ve looked at what email marketing is and why it is used, it’s time to look at whether or not it is effective to you as a customer.
Although viral marketing has created a great deal of attention in the past, almost nothing is known about the motivations, attentions and behaviours of people (those sending the email to others) that constitute the essential component of any such strategy (Phelps et al., 2004). So what do you people really think? Would you, as a new customer of a company, like to receive emails about latest offers or just have the email contact details there if or when you need it?
Although the view of how effective email marketing is, is fundamentally personal to each individual; Aufreiter et al.(2014) say that ‘email is still a subjective more effective way to acquire customers than social media’ and we highlight three main the reasons as to why email marketing is seen as an effective tool:
#1 – Focus on the journey, not the click
As a customer, you want the business to always remember that e-mail is just the first click (literally) in your decision journey. So keep it simple, to the point and easy to understand. The idea of email marketing is to direct you to the website and create brand awareness. Most companies tend to customise their landing pages making it easier for you as its customer to directly navigate to the item or offer featured in the e-mail. This therefore can increase conversion rates by more than 25%.
#2 – Share the lessons
You, as a customer do not want to keep receive unnecessary about products you do not use. For example, you don’t want Asda to be telling you about nappies, when you don’t have a child. Therefore, you want the company to view every e-mail as an opportunity to learn more about you and your spending patterns. By using the data and spotting the trends for each customer, businesses can understand what kind of products their customers want and like which therefore enhances the customer relationship.
#3 – Get personal
The best e-mails feel personal. By addressing emails to the customer by saying for example ‘Dear John’, allows you to feel valuable and wanted by the business. For it to work however, the business must target each customer to guide the right message to the right person.
But, as we all know everything has its pros and cons. Many people think that email marketing is annoying and I for sure, at times do agree. As a customer, you don’t want to be bombarded with mindless spam. Some people also use social media much more which can means that email marketing may not be seen as effective. It can also sometimes be very repetitive which may drive customers away. Some companies may send too many emails in a short time period which may annoy customers and deteriorate its relationship with the business.
For email marketing to be successful, you need to think about WHY you want the customer’s attention, WHAT you want to say and HOW often you communicate with them. Examples of companies who did this well are Amazon, Asos, Graze (as seen below) etc. However, smaller and more local organisations normally tend to struggle due to lack of expertise.
So yes, email marketing does work. It is something that can be very effective for organisations despite the size. Its low cost, accessibility and easy to use ability can be used to the company’s advantage BUT needs to be done in a persuasive, appealing way to keep customers engaged.
References
Aufreiter, N., Boudet, J. & Weng, V. (2014) Why Marketers should keep sending you emails [Online] <http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/why-marketers-should-keep-sending-you-emails#> [Accessed 6th April 2016]
Chaffey, D., Ellis-Chadwick, F., Mayer, R. & Johnston, K. (2009) ‘Internet Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice’ 4thedition, FT Prentince Hall
Godin, S (2008) What do you know? [Online] <http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/05/what-do-you-kno.html> [Accessed 5th April 2016]
Phelps, J.E., Lewis, R., Mobilio, L., Perry, D. & Raman, N. (2004) ‘Viral Marketing or Electronic Word-of-Mouth Advertising: Examining Consumer Responses and Motivations to Pass Along Email’. Journal of Advertising Research [Online]. Available at <http://data.adic.co.kr/lit/publication/tmp/A9001265/A9001265.pdf> [Accessed 6th April 2016]
Rospigliosi, A. (2015) ‘Email Marketing’. [Lecture notes] Brighton: University of Brighton Business School, Unpublished
Truex, L. (2015) Email Marketing [Online] <http://homebusiness.about.com/od/homebusinessglossar1/g/email_marketing.htm> [Accessed 5th April 2016]