E-Mail MarketingBunder M. ShageerIndividual Project

COM 359 Digital Media for Strategic CommunicationDr. Hammick

- History -

- Strengths & Weaknesses -

- Successful & Unsuccessful -

E-Mail Marketing

http://www.smartinsights.com/email-marketing/email-communications-strategy/email-marketing-evolution/

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/24396/11-Excellent-Email-Marketing-Infographics.aspx

History

While email began as a communications tool for academic and business purposes, it soon became a tool for personal communications among friends, relatives and even people who had never met in real life! As people began to spend more and more time using email as their primary communications tool, smart marketers realized that email communications were the future of marketing communications and began to make the shift into using email as a way to effectively communicate with customers.

Email Marketing, even in its earliest days, presented a number of benefits over both postal marketing and telesales as a form of direct-to-consumer or direct business-to-business communications. We'll look at those benefits in detail in the next section of this book, but today email marketing is a robust portion of any complete marketing plan and has entire industries built around helping businesses of all sizes effectively email market.

History

Email come into existence in the 1990’s as the internet was starting to become more popular. Businesses quickly figured out this was a great way to reach customers. It was also less expensive than mailing out advertisements to homes. By 1995 the number of email advertisements sent out that year was more than the number sent out by regular mail. Businesses spend a great deal of money creating email marketing campaigns that won’t be confused with spam.

In fact, email marketing hit a huge road block when spam filters became so popular. Many email marketing campaigns had to be revamped as they were being wiped out by the filters. Businesses were losing money on the marketing campaigns and not getting any results. However savvy computer programmers and businesses soon learned that effective email marketing titles and headlines as well as using their real email address helped get the emails past the various spam filters.

The internet was once used for research, entertainment and work related functions. The idea of shopping online has become very convenient in our society. After all, it allows you to compare prices in a flash. Most of us are too busy to run from store to store. Shopping online has given those in remote locations the chance to get all the gadgets out there they desire. It is only logical that consumers are paying more attention to email marketing since this is the method they are using to do a large portion of their shopping. Email marketing has become mainstream. Almost every website gives the consumer the opportunity to give their email address and consent to being solicited with email advertising.

History

Strengths Inexpensive – It can be rather

cheap due to the nature of what it is –

Reliable – Even though the rate might be low, it is still a reliable method of marketing –

Build Relationships –

Targeting – It works well targeting publics who actually are interested in receiving the message – Sporting goods

Fast – you can promote campaign same day-same moment

Good Tracking – You can easily keep track of who is opening and clicking on your page -

   

Weaknesses Ignored messages – The amount

of people who actually take the time to open the email and view it is minimal

Purchased lists are ineffective – Usually can just be a huge waste of time and resources –

Building a good list can take time – It will take time until the list you build becomes efficient –

Building a list is a lot faster with money

- Strengths & Weaknesses -

Amazon – Brands who Keep Loyal consumers

Successful Campaigns

Amazon are an email marketing powerhouse. They have some of the most sophistacted lifecycle marketing campaigns in the world, so it’s only natural we should look to them for inspiration!

Amazon spends a massive amount of time optimizing user flows and driving customers back to Amazon.com. Getting your customers back on your site is a golden opportunity to get them to interact with new features or buy products.

It drives customers back to Amazon’s website even though the customer initially they initially interacted on the Kindle which exposes the customer to a full range of purchases: not just more digital books. You can bet this is good for Amazon’s bottom line.

It’s not sales-y at all. It’s a clear, simple email that really encourages you to take the key call to action: rate the book.

AMAZON

The New York Times In December 2011, the New York Times sent an email to people

who recently cancelled their subscription asking them to reconsider, and giving them a discount to sweeten the deal. Sounds like a good idea to get a customer back, right? Too bad an employee accidentally sent it to 8 million subscribers instead of the list of 300 that it was meant for.

Subscribers instantly assumed that this spam email was the result of hackers, and some were even mad that they weren't getting the same discount as a loyal customer. Of course, employees responded immediately apologizing and telling people it was an unfortunate human error. Still, this is every email marketer's nightmare, and it serves as a much-needed reminder to always double check your list before clicking 'Send' on any campaign!

UnSuccesful Campaings