Reaching global audiences
Email marketing today is considered one of the most popular forms of Internet advertising, offering a number of distinct advantages to the overall concept of Web marketing. However, email marketing also comes with its own set of disadvantages and pitfalls that can derail a business in short order. In this article we will examine the advantages and disadvantages of email marketing and will also provide some insight into planning and executing an effective email marketing campaign.
Email marketing certainly has a set of unique advantages over other types of marketing, both online and offline, with perhaps one of the most significant of those advantages being the ability to reach a worldwide audience with minimal effort. It is possible to reach a worldwide audience with other types of advertising, but some traditional types of advertising such as television, radio and the print media are not nearly as effective (cost and practicality) in reaching potential customers around the world all at once as email marketing is.
Another major advantage of email marketing is its extreme affordability; significant because there are many other types of marketing, including Web marketing, which are significantly more expensive than email marketing. The costs associated with email marketing are minimal, in the sense that you will already have a list of email recipients who are interested in your products and services, so there is no cost associated with obtaining a list of email addresses. Additionally the cost to send out emails is minimal and can be considered part of your regular operating costs. All of these factors already make email marketing campaigns extremely cost effective.
Economics of email marketing
However, there is some cost involved with email marketing which primarily consist of writing the advertisements and creating certain graphics which will accompany the email ads. Specifically, these costs include hiring a writer to write the copy for ads and a designer to create and implements the graphics. The cost of these services will vary pretty widely but in general you will pay more for writers and designers with more experience because these writers and designers are expected to be able to produce a higher quality of work than those with less experience could produce.
The most obvious disadvantage to email marketing is the possibility of having your email marketing viewed as spam, which is a very noteworthy problem because it could prove to be quite costly in terms of the profit margin for your business. Each day Internet users are bombarded with unsolicited emails serving as advertisements, a problem that has reached epic proportions; and the abundance of spam infiltrating email boxes of innocent Internet users cause them to be cautious and suspicious about any email they receive that is unsolicited and appears to be promoting a particular product or service.
Proceed with caution
Emails which contain subject lines or content that appear to be similar to spam might be automatically transferred to a spam folder by the email system; and emails that are not automatically deleted may be deleted without being opened, simply because the recipient does not recognize the sender of those email messages. Both of these problems can result in wasted time for the business owner since the recipients are not even viewing the emails advertising, products and services offered by the business. Furthermore, they may result in complaints being lodged against the company for being a purveyor of spam.
Now that you have a better understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of email marketing, you might wonder how you can maximize the advantages to use email marketing in a profitable and effective way. The most important factor to consider is your email distribution list, which should consist of former customers who have expressed a desire to receive emails with information and advertisements, as well as potential customers who have also expressed interest in more information.
The soft-sell approach
The content of emails should also be carefully considered, in the sense that they should highlight the products and services you offer, but should do so without appearing to be a hard sales pitch. A writer with experience in writing this type of copy should be able to assist you in providing insightful and accurate copy which also entices the reader to find out more about your products and services. Finally your emails should provide readers with a call to action. This should be a statement urging the reader to take a specific action such as making a purchase or researching a product.
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