Email marketing has become an integral part of targeting prospective clients and building a bond with them online. In fact, e Marketer reports that 97% of small businesses use email marketing to connect with customers.

Electronic Direct Marketing (E.D.M) envisages the marketer marketing his products & services by sending emails targeted to a specific list of consumers. It is a type of advertisement campaign wherein the marketer targets the desired group of individuals depending on the product being offered in order to maximize the conversions.

Email marketing was initially tagged as spam and too salesy. However, the rising importance of online marketing and advertising has helped annul that perception. Companies these days are investing more in EDM’s and the response rate has also been on a rise like never before.

In the current scenario, EDM has become an integral part of business marketing strategy. Since it can be targeted to desired customer group, majority of small businesses are turning to this form of marketing to get in touch with their customers and offer their products & services to them. An EDM campaign is measurable, this is another major advantage which helps the marketer to understand the minute details of his customer base.

Email marketing can be turned into a success by considering some factors;

• Subject line:

To begin with, one must provide an eye catching and accurate subject line to the mail. Mails with a vague subject line would hardly be read. Certain words like free, buy now, subscribe now etc need to be parted with, if you do not want to find your mail ending up in the recipient’s junk box.

• Content:

It is the most important aspect of any email. If the content of the newsletter is not appealing, the recipient would snap out of it within no time. Good content is niche to keep him glued to the mail.

• Call to Action:

Call to Action is the next step in bridging the gap between the business and the client. It is the action which you want the recipient to perform after going through your email. If the ‘call to action’ process is complex, it will reduce the chances of successful conversions. Hence easy navigation is the key to simplify the process.

Further, the success rate also depends on other endogenous factors like the format of the email. If the format of the newsletter is complex and difficult to navigate, it reduces the possibility of a conversion. Bringing in personal touch by addressing the consumer by name also largely contributes in the success of an EDM. Providing relevant links leading to relevant pages, the timing of the mail being shot, the target audiences for the EDM etc. contribute towards the success of an EDM campaign, and in turn have significant impact on sales.

Advantages

Email marketing helps you understand what type of consumer is interested in your product, what kind of product interests him. This analysis helps alter the business strategy favorably. Some of the advantages are as follows:

1. Highly targeted:

Direct mailing can be used to target specific set of individuals by developing lists of email ids matching your product segment. It is possible to reach any market segment or buyer profile most appropriate for your business.

2. Measurable:

One of the greatest advantages of EDM is the accuracy with which it can be measured. The marketer can gauge the performance of an EDM campaign precisely by monitoring and analyzing certain metrics like open rate, bounce rate etc, which are explained further in the article.

3. Cost effective:

EDM is much cheaper as compared to conventional means of marketing, and since it can be targeted to desired group of individuals, it helps utilize the budget optimally.

4. Personal Reach:

Mail merging techniques can easily help add a personal touch to the email by addressing the potential customers by name. This has a significant impact on the reader than when addressed in general.

5. Better conversion rates:

The response rate to personalized mails is usually higher than other mediums of marketing. With the response rate being high it leads to better and quicker conversions. Not only is direct mailing cost effective but it also yields a high conversion rate.

Disadvantages

Unsolicited mails:

One of the main drawbacks of e-mail marketing is that some companies use it to send unsolicited bulk email known as spam. Since the volume of spam is huge, it sometimes leads the recipient to ignore a genuine mail from spam. Though email providers are doing their best to prevent spam, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between a genuine mail and a spam.

Hoax Email ids & delivery problems:

An EDM campaign will be ineffective if the opt in email ids are not genuine. Delivery is another major issue causing hindrance. According to a report, only 56% of mails get delivered in the US. To prevent this, dead weight mail ids must be cleared frequently.

Spam Filters:

Spam filters installed by email providers in order to avoid spam messages also act as an obstacle to legitimate email marketers.

Now to understand the exact impact of EDM on the conversions, branding & advertisement; tracking and analysis of every campaign needs to be done. Certain metrics listed below need to be regularly monitored to gauge the performance.

• Firstly, in order to know how many people have actually opened the mail, one must take a look at the open rate. Open rate gives you the percentage of people opening the mail.

• Secondly, you need to monitor call-to-action, ie the percentage of people responding to your call-to-action, to obtain the conversion rate.

• Further you also need to keep a check on the bounce rate, which provides a list of emails that fail to get delivered. Such dead weight mail addresses need to be cleared frequently in order to ensure an effective EDM campaign.

Rarely is there the individual who does not encounter an ethical or moral dilemma at some point in his or her business life. Whether that individual is the owner of a multinational corporation, a small business entrepreneur, or a new or established employee, everyone is likely to have to face such an instance eventually. Much like a personal ethical dilemma, an individual is faced with making a decision based on how it will affect not only himself, but on how it will effect the organization as a whole. One of the major problems when dealing with an ethical dilemma in business is that individuals are often swayed by business profits and the legality of a decision.The Institute of Business Ethics, whose slogan is “doing business ethically makes for better business”, describes the term business ethics as such.Business ethics is the application of ethical values to business behaviour. It applies to any and all aspects of business conduct, from boardroom strategies and how companies treat their suppliers to sales techniques and accounting practices. Ethics goes beyond the legal requirements for a company and is, therefore, discretionary. Business ethics applies to the conduct of individuals and to the conduct of the organisation as a whole. It is about how a company does its business, how it behaves intrinsically.As clear as this definition is, it is certainly open to interpretation. Therefore it must be understood that the application of business ethics to any situation is entirely subjective.One can also understand business ethics, and ethics of any kind, as applying a sense of fairness to a situation. Even with a sense of clarity applied to the use of business ethics, reaching a just and moral decision can be a complex process for most individuals. The subject of business ethics has been a source of great debate in recent years as the heads of major (and minor) corporations are revealed as less than ethical characters both in the way they do business and in their personal conduct. However, it may be said that any individual who does not practice business ethics cannot be personally ethical even though the reverse may not also be true. Ethics in generally has a long history of applications. Centuries ago a man’s ethical practices defined who he was as an individual. However, as populations grew, the necessity for incorporating the best business practices into a company became somehow less important because there was always another customer around the corner and the owner of a business was rarely the focus of attention in a community the way he or she may have been in the past. A company’s administration took a seat in the background and hired representatives to deal with any fallout. Ethics rely on several factors, one of the most important of which is culture. Again, like the business person of the past, a culture’s ethics practices will largely depend upon the value that is placed on them. Business ethics have the unappealing conflict of often being contrary to what is legal. Often what is “right” is not necessarily what is legal, and a business must consider this conflict when making ethical judgments. Although there are many in the business world who believe that a business has no room for ethics if it is to function competitively, the numbers of corporate whistleblowers indicate that there is still room for ethics in business.Western societies place a great deal of emphasis on success. However, in business, there are often conflicts between ethical behavior and business success. This disparity is often multiplied for the small business owner. To compete with larger businesses, it may be tempting to abandon ethics just to make an adequate profit. Additionally, the small business person is relatively autonomous in his or her decision making; he or she does not have to answer to a large employee base or a corporate governing board. It is also interesting to note that the small business leader often has his or her decisions impact a greater number of individuals than does the employee of the small business. For instance, a small business owner may have his or her decision affect his or her customer base as well as his or her employee base. The employee will likely find that his or her decision will only directly impact his or her immediate circle of coworkers. However, the pressure to succeed is both an internal and an external pressure and often leads individuals to make ethical decisions that are based more on those pressures than their own moral judgment. As consumers grow wary of those that they do business with, one must understand that there is just cause for such wariness. The cynical American consumer has learned, often the hard way, that there is little room in business for ethics. In a society where the customer used to be king, the consumer has more often than not experienced several distasteful experiences with business both large and small.Some experts argue that any focus on profitability is bound to test the limits of ethical practices. They assert that to assume that the primary function of a business is to serve its client base in an ethical manner is idealistic and that the nature of a free economy dictates that ethics must take a back seat to increasing profits. Although it is rarely the conscious intent of a business to harm the public interest, reality dictates that the businesses ability to increase profits will determine its success. Publicly owned companies experience extra pressure in this arena. It is difficult to draw investors to a company based on its ethics. Investors are looking for a return on their investment and ethical performance does not equal dollars. There are economists that assert that, in any competitive economy, ethics are impossible to uphold; that a company can legitimately bypass ethics with the excuse that unethical practices are the only way to make a profit.Unlike the larger corporations, the small business leader is in a unique position to shape the ethical practices of his or her business. Small businesses have a smaller employee base to police when applying ethical policies than do larger businesses. It is important to understand that, similar to the ethical dilemmas of the large corporations, although an individual surely knows the difference between the correct ethical decision and the wrong road, the choice to throw ethics to the wind is often made because the unethical choice is more profitable. This may, however, happen much less often in smaller organizations because the individual or individuals who are harmed by the unethical decision and someone is always harmed, is more visible to the small business. Major corporations and their decision making machines are often far removed from the individuals that their immoral and/or unethical decisions effect. This may make the wrong decision much easier to make.The unique position that the small business owner is in regarding the formation of an ethics policy yields a great responsibility. A proactive business leader formulates a statement of organizational values that employees of the company are expected to embrace – at least while performing duties in the service of the company. An organizational ethics policy is an announcement to the employees, the customer base and the community as a whole that the business is prepared to conduct itself and its practices on an ethical level. Such statements invite the respect of all parties involved in doing business with such an entity. However, it is imperative that the small business owner not make the same mistake that larger organizations often do; the ethical policies that a business develops must not be in conflict with the organizational goals. It is unethical in itself to develop an ethical policy that an employee cannot possibly follow and maintain his or her employment. When faced with the decision between an ethical decision and his or her job, an employee will almost always choose the job.Therefore the policy must be in reasonable alignment with the organizational goals of the business. It is equally important, and maybe more so, that the small business leader lead by example. Employees, especially in a smaller organization, are less likely to conduct themselves ethically if they receive implicit permission not to. The end result of such a practice is that the small business owner can be assured that he or she is conducting business in a manner that encourages the trust of his or her customers as well as his or her employees. And since consumers have become very wary of doing business with an entity they feel they cannot trust, the small business can enjoy the profits of a loyal customer base. The small business owner has an advantage over the larger corporations in that it can elicit the trust of the consumer by applying ethical business practices that give the customer the feel of an equal business relationship rather than one where the consumer buys based on need alone. There are many that believe that such practices are capable of drawing business away from the large corporate entities and back into a customer-focused business format.

Auctions are those events where properties or goods are sold to the highest bidder. Auctions are mostly public events, where bidders make a series of bids and purchase a particular item for a high price. During auctions, bidders decide the price of an item rather than the seller. It depends on bidders to decide the amount they would want to pay for a specific item. During an auction, a bid is a proof of a legal binding. Bidders agree to pay the amount that they have bid. In a high profile auction, bidders may have to pay a deposit in escrow accounts or give a proof that they can pay for those items.

Types of Auctions:

Different types of auctions take place around the world. Below mentioned are some types of auctions:

1. English auction:
This is a basic type of auction. In this type, people can see the item and then start bidding. Bidders slowly raise the value of their bid until everyone gives up. The highest bidder is the winner. An auctioneer manages an auction, keeps records of the on going bid and decides the winner. Sometimes, the seller will quote a minimum amount for an item to the auctioneer, below which the auctioneer cannot sell that item.

2. Dutch auction:
In this type, the auctioneer sets a particular price and then gradually lowers the price. People in public will start bidding and later decide which prices are suitable for the item. A seller may use this type of auction to sell large quantities of same products to the public. For instance, a seller may want to sell a large amount of hay and will thus, decide to sell this hay to people for the same amount, once a reasonable price is decided.

3. Silent auction:
In this type, the bidders in public will present their bids in a sealed format. These sealed bids open at the same time and bidder with the highest bid wins. There could be a modification in this type of auction. The bidders are allotted a specific period to bid. They can roam in a room displaying the items, and write their bids on an associated sheet of paper. The bidders are allowed to see bids of other bidders and can choose a higher price for an item. At the end of the allotted time, bidder with the highest bid is the winner.

Examples of Auctions:

Auctions can be of two types either public or private. Sellers may trade any kind of items in both types of auctions. Some areas where auctions take place are:

1. Antique auction: An antique auction consists of a trade opportunity as well as provides entertainment.

2. Collectable auction: In a collectable auction, the seller may put up collectables like coins, vintage cars, luxury, stamps, real estate, and luxury for sale.

3. Wine auction: In wine auction, bidders can bid for rare wine, which may not be available in retail wine shops.

4. Horse auction: Bidders can bid for young horses of the best breed.

5. Livestock auction: In livestock auction, bidders can buy pigs, sheep, cattle, and other livestock.

The other examples of auctions may not be public. These auctions are for bidders from corporate levels. Some examples of private auctions are:

1. Timber auction
2. Spectrum auction
3. Electricity auction
4. Debit auction
5. Environmental auction
6. Auto auction
7. Electronic market auction
8. Sales of business auction

Bidders in an auction need to examine the items displayed and decide an appropriate price for an item. Thus, auctions help buyers in getting the best deals and in gaining better profits for sellers.