How Email Marketing can Benefit your Business

What is usually the first thing you do when you log onto the internet? Check your email, of course. Email use keeps rising; Forrester Research states that more than 35 percent of web user time is spent with email. The use of email goes beyond personal use but has taken prominence as a business communications tool. Email promotes efficiency in business and now it is increasingly being used for marketing.

Email marketing has fast emerged a way for businesses to stay in touch with their customers, enhance customer relationships, introduce/sell new products and services, and acquire new customers. Email marketing campaigns can be used for any type of business to market any type of service.

According to the new Jupiter Research report, “US E-mail Marketing Forecast, 2007 to 2012,” email marketing will cross $2 Billion by 2012. The growing investment in email marketing presents new opportunities for emarketers.

Cost Effective - Email marketing is a cost-effective way to reach your target audience. Compared to traditional marketing, Pay Per Click, banner ads, and so on; emarketing provides more value for less money.

Targeted Audience – The use of self-generated email lists have a higher success rate than purchased email lists used by email spammers. If you create your own list it means that your intended audience has given you permission to receive future email communication from you. This type of marketing is more effective than direct marketing, where large sums of monies are used to send mail, in order to receive 1% success rate.

Quick and Efficient - Email campaigns are easy to develop, requiring fewer resources than other resource hungry marketing campaigns. Basically, you develop the message, identify your target audience and email the message. Additionally, there is the flexibility to change the message to suit a different audience quickly. Email marketing generates a faster response than other marketing methods, once the email is read and the message liked, the customer can respond with the click of the mouse.

Personal Communication – Email marketing can be a personalized way to maintain contact with customers and enhance relationships with them. You can regularly engage your audience with tailor made messages. Email marketing can be a great component of a Contact Management System that delivers information in a timely cost-effective manner that is profitable for you.

Personalized emarketing lets you maximize existing customer relationships and turn prospects into loyal long-term profitable customers.

Track and Assess - Traditional marketing campaigns are complex and time intensive exercises that may take months to plan, implement, and assess. For example, to initiate a direct mail campaign it takes weeks to develop the content, arrange production, and mail the promotion. This doesn’t include the period of time of wait and see for the response. And this certainly doesn’t include assessment of the results, such as who bought your product, who visited your website, multivariate testing, and more.

Meanwhile, email campaigns results are known immediately, can be tracked, and quickly evaluated for effectiveness.

Boost Sales – You can send your audience special promotions, coupons, discounts and other offers that provide a strong call-to-action for each specific promotion through email marketing. Solid offers are key to a successful email marketing campaign.

Enhance Brand Awareness – In addition to text, emails can contain dynamic content. If the marketing message delivered is unique, entertaining, and compelling, your brand can garner attention of a large audience; thus enhancing the profile of your brand.

Increase Site Traffic – Email marketing offers a fast, easy, and effective outlet to entice people to visit your site. There are many methods to entice audiences to visit your site, such as free offers, entertaining messages, help guides, tool, and etc.