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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.

1. Awareness = Existence. Little to no advertising means you are generating little to no awareness about who your company is and what you offer. FACT: Buyers are always more aware of the companies with the most aggressive marketing. It doesn’t matter how great your product or service is if nobody knows about it! Basically put, if you don’t advertise, and do it frequently and effectively – you don’t exist.

2. Your image defines you.(TM) Your advertising puts you in a unique position to personally design your own corporate identity and create how the outside world views your company. Your company’s brand relies heavily on your corporate identity and advertising. If designed correctly, you can use your advertising to position your company as a leader in your industry, neutralize negative publicity and PR, and expose your competitors weaknesses while highlighting your strengths.

3. Potential customers are ready to listen. Are you talking? About half of consumers buy an item within one week of deciding to make the purchase, but the actual purchase time is typically unplanned. As an example, say you decide to buy a new refrigerator. For the next week, you are not only willing to listen to advertisements but eager to in order to see what your options are to find the best deal. They will soak in your advertising like a sponge in order to help them decide where to buy.

4. If you’re not First – You’re Last. Simmons Research concluded that consumers believe buying a familiar brand usually guarantees approval while buying unfamiliar brands is risky… Keep in mind also that a large percentage of consumers postpone buying and spend a lot of time comparing prices, quality, and service. For these consumers, you want your advertising to consistently reach them throughout their entire decision-making process. Your goal is to become the First Familiar brand that comes to mind when they are ready to buy.

5. INTENTION is nothing without ACTION. An occasional advertisement may help in terms of generating some awareness but it will do little in terms of creating sales. Potential customers may know who you are, and may intend to use your products/services one day, but that’s not going to keep you in business. Consistent advertisements designed with a call-to-action such as limited-time sales, coupons, and promotional codes that expire give consumers in the “I’ll have to do that one of these days” phase an incentive to act now.

6. Advertising creates traffic, which increases sales. Advertise to drive traffic to your store, website, or any service location. Once your prospective customer is present you can us limited-time promotions and other call-to-action advertising locally to increase impulse and point-of-sale purchases. A National Retail Federation survey found that for every 100 items consumers plan to buy, they make an additional 30 unanticipated purchases!

7. Advertising SAVES you Time and Money. A significant number of sales are lost simply because the consumer didn’t have enough knowledge of the product and all of their available options. You can use your advertising to educate the consumer about your service/product’s features and its benefits. Knowledgeable consumers save you time and money by comparison shopping first and often already know what they want reducing your direct selling costs, the costs associated with hiring additional salespeople, and the time spent selling it to them.

8. Invest in your success. Consistent advertising gives you an advantage over competitors who reduce or eliminate their advertising. A survey of more than 3,000 companies found that advertisers who expanded or at least maintained a steady level of advertising over a five-year period saw their sales increase an average of 100%, whereas companies that reduced advertising grew at less than half that rate.

9. Learn from the pros. Copy Success. Simply put, effective advertising works. Successful businesses are usually consistent and aggressive advertisers. A common excuse from small business owners is “The BIG businesses can afford to advertise, but we’re just a small company.” Our response is this – What came first, the chicken or the egg? Sure, some of these big businesses started out with large investment capital, but consider this perspective: Perhaps they were small, gained momentum, and continued to grow because they understood the importance of and utilized their advertising. They out-advertised their competition in order to gain their position, and then have continued to advertise to maintain that position.