Introduction to E-Mail Marketing. The Basics

E-mail marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every e-mail sent to a potential or current customer could be considered e-mail marketing. However, the term is usually used to refer to:

• Sending e-mails with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with their current or old customers and to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business;

• Sending e-mails with the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing old customers to buy something again;

• Adding advertisements in e-mails sent by other companies to their customers.

Studies have shown that the first thing people do when they turn on their computers for the day is open their e-mail. Because of this fact, email marketing is becoming a primary, effective tool for advertising. By using advertising banners, click through message options, and other routes, a business can interest a new customer as well as entice a previous customer into more purchases.

Internet direct mail has many advantages over traditional paper direct mail:

• It's faster. E-mail can reach the target almost in seconds. You can get out a campaign, get results, and make money in days in a short period of time after sending your e-mail. This compares very favorably to traditional direct mail campaigns, which can take eight to twelve or more weeks to complete (from concept, copy, and design, through printing and mailing).

• Response is immediate. Your customers will give a response the day you send your message, and you will receive 90 percent of your responses in about four days. As you get results sooner, you can plan the next campaign or rollout with confidence.

• Traditional direct mailing is limited by geo­graphically boundaries (currencies, time zones, varying postal regu­lations, and postal systems of varying quality and reliability), e-mail is a global medium. Successful campaigns can easily be rolled out worldwide.

• It's less complicated to produce. The typical Internet direct mailing is a typed e-mail message created right on your com­puter. Unless you want to incorporate sophisticated graphics you do not need a professional graphic designer, Web developer or HTML programmer.

• Costs are much cheaper to send. The cost to send a paper direct mailer is typically sixty to eighty cents per piece. This price includes printing, postage, mailing list rental, and production. At that rate, mailing 100,000 pieces would cost $60,000 to $80,000. E-mailing to the same number of prospects will cost about $300 - $1,500 depending on the services used.

• E-mail services works as well as or better than regular direct mail in many instances. E-mail makes the purchase fast, easy and at a time and place of the buyer's choice. This increases response rates. Personal­ization, which increases response, is easy and inexpensive. You can create powerful presentations combining graphics, text, voice, video, audio, animation, color, and interactivity.

Email marketing does not work as well for a one-time quick hit marketing strategy. Email allows you to build a regular, ongoing dialogue with your best clients and prospects. That becomes self-selecting - those who most wish to do business with you will appreciate the regular communications. Those who do not can opt-out.

E-Mail Marketing

Our next stage presents a new Internet Marketing tool which you can use for business project development. You can create a powerful presentation of your offer and deliver it to the targeted audience immediately and at a low cost. An e-mail marketing campaign can be an answer to many of your marketing needs.

These days people are virtually-living in their inboxes. E-mail is a fast, inexpensive and effective way to target and address various audiences, especially when compared to other traditional marketing channels.

E-mail marketing provides great benefits as part of an Internet Marketing business campaign. It’s a highly effective tool for reaching prospects, customers and specific clients.

E-mail marketers can freely manipulate the message transmission mechanisms, copy content, advertising banners and other options to make a purchase easy, fast, and at a time and place of the buyer's choice. This increases response rates. You should definitely incorporate e-mail marketing best practices into your knowledge base.

What follows is a compilation of ways to start an e-mail marketing strategy, create a reliable mailing list, compose message copy, track results, and run and manage the campaign.

You’ll also get a clear picture of trends and patterns to aid you in mapping your email marketing strategy. By having these guidelines and benchmarking your competition you can develop a Web project and become a successful industry practitioner. The market is constantly changing so tracking known competitors in your field is smart and savvy marketing will be one of your primary activities.

A direct e-mail campaign, like any other promotional effort, should have an elaborate plan and arise from your business's over­all marketing plan. Be sure to track the campaign and measure responses.

Use the Internet more effectively to deliver ads and offers via mailing services to prospects, customers and clients. E-mail marketing is a quick and easy way to drive considerable amounts of traffic of targeted visitors and it can effectively create interest for a new customer as well as entice previous customers into more purchases.

Introduction to Online Advertising

Our next lesson covers the main items for online advertising. Advertising is probably the most important promotion tool for big brick-and-mortar companies. However, with a SEM businesses, advertising is only a supporting factor. The problem is that the majority of SEM businesses lack the scale to be able to effectively contact large numbers of prospects and clients. Furthermore, there aren't many places on the Web where prospective clients come in flocks. Therefore, advertising is largely PPC-oriented.

Actually, online advertising is advertising on the Internet. This particular form of advertising is a source of revenue for an increasing number of websites and companies.

A significant number of firms, from small businesses to multinational corporations, incorporate online advertising into their marketing strategy. Online advertisements typically involve at least two separate firms: the advertiser or agency which purchases or sponsors the advertisement and the publisher or network which distributes the ad for display. Because of the close relationship between technical innovation and online advertising, many firms specialize in both. For example, most search engines couple their search service with an advertising program, exploiting the benefits of keyword-based search technology by including ads in search results.

Let’s look closer on the most popular online advertising form as traditional banner. PPC advertising form will be explained in details in 8 lessons of our next Step. in next posting