“Permission-based e-mails sent to customers are a form of marketing that is on the increase. E-mail marketing campaigns produce approximately twice the return on investment of the other main forms of online marketing such as web banners and online directory adverts.” (Ellis-Chadwick, & Doherty. 2012)

With email marketing on the rise, more and more companies are beginning to utilise the benefits that it offers, its time to ask yourself; are you going to ‘opt in’?

Given that email provides marketers with communication that permits relationship building and real-time interaction with customers (Jackson and DeCormier, 1999), and with such low costs is this something your company can really afford to say no to?… Didn’t think so!

TYPES OF EMAIL MARKETING

Depending on the type of message you are hoping to convey you will likely be using one of the following:

• EMAIL NEWSLETTER – These typically inform customers or the latest offers, promotions and sales. When done correctly these are more than just a sales tool – they can have a long term impact on the receiver. The aim should be to provide the customer with value – it should inform, entertain and benefit the reader. (Richason, 2015)

• PRESS RELEASE EMAIL – Normally associated with newspapers and trade magazines but is also used by small businesses to inform customers of a new item or promotion. Where these differ from a newsletter is in that they usually focus on one message with the aim to inform and to tempt customers to visit the business either online or in person. (Richason, 2015)

•  CATALOG EMAIL – This is similar to a newsletter, but is usually compromised of images with short descriptions and prices as opposed to dialogue pieces. These are comparable to a catalog you may receive through the post but without the costly printing and shipping charges.

• VIDEO EMAIL – More or less what it says on the tin… crossbreed of newsletter and catalog email, this snazzy marketing tool is compromised of dialog with images, video footage and graphics. As you can probably guess this is a lot more technical than your standard newsletter email.

• SURVEY EMAIL –  These request that customers provide feedback and require customer interaction, usually with the incentive of something in return such as a discount or voucher.

• INVITATION EMAIL – Invites the reader to take part in a sales promotion or event, these usually prompt the customer to visit the business online or in person at a particular time/ date.

• THANK-YOU EMAIL – Kindness doesn’t cost a thing! – Well barely a thing when its email marketing! Good customer service is at the heart of most successful companies – particularly small businesses. It can make a customer feel valued and ensure their future loyalty and custom when a business responds to their experience. The best thank-you emails are personalised to the consumer and offer a token of appreciation- such as a coupon or discount, they also use this as an opportunity to advertise current or future offers and products. (Richason, 2015)

WHY TO…

Peppers and Rodgers (2000, p 4), allege that ‘clear benefits, including high response rates and low costs are rapidly turning email marketing into an invaluable tool’. Here are some of the reasons you should opt-in to email marketing:

• Less time and less effort – Consider the alternative offline marketing tools – Telesales Campaigns and Print Postals – both take up more of your time and more of your budget! Postal: you have to craft the mailing, print it, envelope it, post it, wait for it to arrive – many of these stages can replaced with the click of a button. Telesales: you have to craft a script, employ telesales staff to dial number and regurgitate said script – this phone call may also inconvienience the consumer, who if received an email instead could choose to read it at a time convenient for them. With email marketing it is estimated that you can turn a marketing communications piece out in less than two hours (Gao, 2013).

• One size fits one – Who needs one size fits all when you can personalise your marketing communications to draw the consumer in and make them feel engaged and important. This is not limited to their name, email address or login but you can use previous search or sales history. You can segment your customer lists into smaller list and target people due to their location or a certain type of product. Email allows you to speak in a personalised way with your consumers that isn’t available via other marketing channels. A great example of this is an email I recently received from Amazon; reminding me that I had added a product to my basket, but didn’t complete the checkout. This not-so-subtle reminder hit the nail right on the head, its personalised, short, sweet and simple with a link that took me to the landing page of my amazon basket, where I was able to complete my purchase in under one minute!

• Increased frequency of communications – As email marketing is a big time saver it enables you to communicate with your customers more often than say a monthly postal catalogue. Although you should however bare in mind that the best email marketing practices do not send your consumers more than one email a week – however you could communicate daily if you desire (Gao, 2013).

For a full list of benefits please see here…

WHY NOT TO…

• You must be aware of the legal issues – Don’t panic! – it is unlikely you have been breaking the law if you have simply been sending emails are your life. However, when using email marketing I suggest you familiarise yourself with what you can and cannot do. There are limitations on various things such as; you’re only permitted to send marketing emails to individual customers with their permission and they must expressly state:
  • who you are,
  • the fact that you are selling something, and
  • what the promotions and conditions are. (GOV.UK, 2014)

To further enlighten yourself on the legal issues surrounding email marketing please visit the GOV.UK website…

•  Less is more! – Literally, a 2011 study has shown that 22% of consumer claim that they withdrew their custom from a company altogether because they were receiving too many emails or ones which were irrelevant to them (Wickford, 2015)
• Deliverability – not all emails that you send reach the consumers inbox for various reasons such as blocked IP addresses to deactivated email accounts. “Your bounce rate should never be more than 20%, and that would be considered to be the high end of the scale. You would really prefer, on a house list, to see a bounce rate of less than 10%” (Gao, 2015).  If it is more than that you need to reevaluate your email list as bounced emails will never lead to a sale. Please see here for tips on how to prevent high bounce rates, for example checking email validity at the time of sign-up.

For an exhaustive list of email marketing pitfalls please see here…

GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR EMAIL MARKETING CAMPAIGN:

In order to get the most to of your campaign it is essential to measure the performance metrics of your email marketing campaign. The three most important metrics to measure are:

• Open rate – this is the number of emails opened divided by the number of emails delivered.
• Click-through rate – this is the number of people who clicked on a link within the email divided by the number of emails opened.
• Conversions – The Conversion rate is the number of people who performed the desired action, such as filling out a lead form or purchasing a product. Calculate your conversion rate by dividing the number of leads or sales by the number of people who responded to your email (Wickford, 2015)

For a full list of email marketing metrics see here.

SO WHAT HAVE WE LEARNT…

 Email marketing is definitely on the up and if your not already taking advantage of the benefits that it has to offer; it may be time to jump on the bandwagon. BUT REMEMBER be aware of the legal issues, less is more and in order to reap the full benefits you need to measure the performance metrics of your campaign. For example the click-through rate can provide an insight into how many people are engaging with your content and are keen to learn more about your brand and offers.

REFERENCES

Ellis-Chadwick, F., & Doherty, N. F. (2012). Web advertising: The role of e-mail marketing. Journal of Business Research, 65(6), 843-848.

Gao, K. (2013). The Top10 Benefits of Email Marketing. Available: http://emailmarketing.comm100.com/email-marketing-ebook/email-marketing-benefits.aspx. Last accessed 23rd April 2015.

Gao, K. (2015). Email List Management: What are the Best Ways to Handle Bad Addresses & Unsubscribers?. Available: http://emailmarketing.comm100.com/email-marketing-tutorial/email-list-management.aspx. Last accessed 24 April 2015.

Goliger, S. (2014). The Essential Email Marketing Metrics You Should Be Tracking. Available: http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/metrics-email-marketers-should-be-tracking. Last accessed 24th April 2015.

GOV.UK. (2014). Marketing and advertising: the law. Available: https://www.gov.uk/marketing-advertising-law/direct-marketing. Last accessed 23rd April 2015.

Jackson, A. and DeCormier, R. (1999), “E-mail Survey Response Rates: Targeting Increases Response”, Journal of Marketing Intelligence and Planning , v.17, n.3, p. 135-139.

Peppers, D. and Rogers, M. (2000),Email Marketing Maximized, Peppers,Stamford, C.A.

GOV.UK. (2014). Marketing and advertising: the law. Available: https://www.gov.uk/marketing-advertising-law/direct-marketing. Last accessed 23rd April 2015.

Richason, O. (2015). Types of Email Marketing. Available: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/types-email-marketing-3474.html. Last accessed 24th April.

Wickford, H. (2015). Email Marketing Pitfalls. Available: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/email-marketing-pitfalls-42956.html. Last accessed 24th April 2015.