Anyone seeking to expand and grow his/her business needs to invest in a great marketing plan. In your search of marketing options, you may have discovered email marketing. How viable is this option, and what are the benefits for sending an email newsletter to your current and prospective clients? Read below to learn why you should use email marketing.
It's Inexpensive
The costs incurred in designing, executing, testing, sending and receiving an email newsletter can be up to 78% less for a run of 5000 contacts compared to its paper-based direct mail version. With an eNewsletter you will spend less time, money and resources than with traditional marketing options, such as direct mail. There are even several email marketing services that offer free plans if you have under a certain number of monthly subscribers.
It's Interactive
With direct mail, you run the risk of people merely throwing away your advertisement. With email newsletters, you can entice people to click on links and videos. You can innovatively insert graphics, videos, music, quiz, poll or any other interesting information in your campaigns. These additions will grab your reader's attention and interest immediately.
It's Personalized
Email campaigns aren't just about branching out to prospective clients-they are also great for keeping current clients in the know about your business. It's all about creating a small community within your eNewsletter. Email marketing enables you to personalize your emails to your subscribers with the help of segmenting; meaning you can easily email a certain sect of your contacts who have something in common.
It's Fast
Time to receive responses through email newsletters is one to three days, with maximum responses on day one. A direct mail campaign would take minimum seven to 12 days to generate any responses. Users can easily respond to email, while direct mail could get lost in the shuffle.
It's Easy
With the advent of email marketing services, such as VerticalResponse or ConstantContact, creating an email campaign has never been simpler. You don't need to be a designer or a computer coder to create an appealing eNewsletter that will get opened and clicked through. Most providers have tons of templates to sift through and a handy WYSIWYG editor that makes inputting text, links and images a breeze.
It Works
Did you know that there were approximately 1.4 billion email users in 2009? This number is expected to rise to 1.0 billion by 2013. Simply put, there are a lot of people using email to communicate, and using email marketing services to reach them is a great idea. According to the Ad Effectiveness Survey in Feb 2009, email and e-newsletter marketing are considered the second-most effective tool for generating conversions, just behind SEO. Email marketing is effective in driving traffic to your site, building loyalty and increasing sales.
It Measures Results
The benefits from most types of marketing and advertising are very difficult to measure. However, with email marketing, you can easily view the number of emails opened and click throughs. The reporting function of any email marketing service is incredibly useful because it can help you send highly targeted campaigns to the individuals most likely to respond to your offer, thus improving your results in the future.
