Email marketing simply put is the use of Email (Electronic Mail) for marketing. It is a form of direct marketing strategy whereby a marketer or advertiser communicates information to current or potential customers. Email marketing is one of the oldest online marketing strategies that successful entrepreneurs employ in acquiring and retaining customers for their businesses. Email marketing, has been and will continue to be for a long while, an effective marketing tool.
There are different types of Emails and marketers send them for different reasons. For example advertising messages inserted as footnotes in ordinary emails. You find a lot of such short advertisements you in emails sent to you by friends especially those using free services like Yahoo, Hotmail etc. Many corporate organizations also add little advertisements as auto-signatures to their corporate emails.
Email Marketing Strategies
The various types of Emails and their goals can be easily classified as follows:
1. Direct Email – This involves sending a promotional message to customers or prospects. For example, an announcement of special sales.
2. Retention Email – These are emails meant to retain and encourage customers loyalty. They usually take the form of regular emails and are popularly refer to as newsletters. A newsletter even though it may carry promotional messages focuses on providing value to the recipient in the form of valuable information or entertainment. Its main goal is to establish a long-term relationship between the entrepreneur and the recipient.
3. Rented Email List – Sometimes, online marketers rent other peoples email list for their advertisement. For example, an entrepreneur who is just starting can put his advertisement in another online marketers Newsletter in other to reach a wider audience than he could possibly do by starting his own newsletter. There are many well established online marketers that sell advertisement space in their newsletter to other entrepreneurs.Emails composed and sent with the purpose of establishing, fostering, retaining or encouraging customer loyalty or patronage.
In several corporate organizations, email marketing is preferred to orthodox marketing tools such as Direct Mailing, Print Newsletter and Placing of advertisements in subscription magazines and newspapers. The reason for the preference is not far-fetched.