12 Advantages of Email Marketing!

Written by Mike Hamers, Lightspeed     
  Edited by Kate Hamers, Lightspeed and Kris Green, Turn Words 2 Money

Why does email marketing present a benefit over other more traditional forms of marketing? Why does it drive better returns on investment and customer engagement metrics than other marketing techniques? Why would you invest the time and resources to develop an email marketing program at all?

In this article we go through the top twelve email marketing anvantages to your business compared to other forms of marketing.   
                          
1. SIMPLE TO IMPLEMENT
Anyone can create and send an email anytime, anywhere. Emails allow you to easily distribute information to a wide range of targeted, potential clients at a low cost to you.
         
2. LOW COST AND "GREEN"
Using email eliminates the three Ps: Paper, Printing and Postage. With email marketing the cost for testing, executing, and sending printed newsletters is removed. Many people also like using email marketing because it supports the paperless “green initiative”.

         
3. EASY TO TRACK
Email marketing offers perhaps the best marketing channel from which to draw precise and usable tracking information about sales and user engagement. Specific email marketing tools can help you determine what's working or what's not.  Well-developed email marketing platforms such as SwiftPage E-Marketing (whom I personally use and enthusiastically recommend) can provide tracking information about many important marketing parameters including:
   - How many people opened an email,
   - How many clicked a link,
   - Which specific link within the email was clicked,
   - How many people "unsubscribed",
   - How many messages bounced,
   - Which emails were “undeliverable”

These metrics are important indicators about how your email marketing is working. Knowing open rates, positive or negative responses, and how sales correlate with your specific marketing piece allows you to do more of what is working and change what is not working well yet.
         
4. TARGET YOUR EMAILS
Email contains opt in or opt out options. These options help you short-list your prospects. People who want to hear your message will happily give you their email address. When they no longer need your message, they can unsubscribe at their discretion. This means your message is directed at a more targeted audience than a mass mailing would be, for example.
         
5. MORE FREQUENT COMMUNICATIONS
Because email takes less time to create and send than other marketing and advertising channels do, you can communicate with your customers more frequently. Instead of only sending a flyer or catalog once a month or once a quarter, with email marketing you can easily send relevant offers once a week. Those who purchase frequently can also be marketed to even more frequently if appropriate.

WARNING: An important “typical” email marketing "best practice" is to not send customers email more than once a week.


         
6. FAST MESSAGES AND RESPONSES
Email is lightning-fast compared to direct mail which can take anywhere from 7 to 10 days to get a response. Email Marketing however has a response rate of between 1 and 3 days.
                       
         
7. GLOBAL REACH
No matter where you are or when you need to reach people, targeted emails can reach their targets. There are no boundaries with email marketing. Advertisers are able to get repeat business affordably and automatically whether marketing to their local market or globally.
         
8. HIGHLY PERSONAL
With email marketing, you can easily speak to your customers in a very personalized and intimate way that is not possible with other marketing channels and avenues. For example, you can have specific lists for your most frequent purchasers, or for those who prefer a particular medium over another (books, audios, videos, DVDs, etc.). With email marketing, who receives what message can be customized easily.
         
9. MEASURABLE RESULTS
Special email marketing tools are available that accurately measure a variety of important marketing factors. Some were discussed in advantage #3. Additional aspects you can measure include:
   - Click-through rate (how many people who receive your
     email message actually click to see the landing page),
   - Conversion rate (how many people who receive your email actually purchase),
   - How someone arrived at your site, and more.

Email marketing is consistently reported to be one of the most effective online marketing tactics.
         
10. SEGMENT TARGET MARKETING
With email marketing you can easily segment your customer database. This means you can focus your marketing to the people most likely to want the solution you provide. Therefore you can send extremely targeted marketing campaigns that often result in increased sales conversions simply because the campaign is so specific. For example, if you sell flowers, you can find everybody in your database who has consistently purchased roses and then send those purchasers an email in April when the first rose shipments come in. Or you can target a specific audience based on geography, age, income, or whatever best matches your current product or service. Want to send a coupon to the 30-35 year old females in a specific zip code for no extra cost? Such laser focus is easy and cost-effective with email marketing… significantly easier than with print marketing.

When you target your message to the people most likely to want it at the time they receive your message, then you are using your customer database to put the most relevant message in front of the customers who are most likely to respond to it. That’s what good marketing is all about.
         
11. INFORMATION SPREADING– VIRAL POTENTIAL
When was the last time that you saw somebody hand over a postal mailing that they'd received to a friend who might be interested? Or have you seen somebody clip an ad from a magazine and send it to a family member who may have an interest in that product or service? This process is very cumbersome. But, forwarding an email with an enticing or useful offer or piece of information only takes seconds and many users will do it. That means your marketing effort has not only a wider reach but also a networked reach with people who, by forwarding the email, are now acting as your brand advocates.
         
12. INTERACTIVE
Finally, email marketing is interactive. You can initiate campaigns using videos, graphics, music, quizzes, games, or anything that gets your targeted client engaged in. Email marketing lets you push a message to your clients, as opposed to a website that passively waits for customers to come to it.  All-in-all, email marketing is the most effective way to get the most bang for your marketing buck!  – MH

                                       IINFOGRAPHICS BY MIKE HAMERS

AT LIGHTSPEED, we can help you with your e-campaigns to make your branding visually consistent with your print materials and website. We can create custom templates or help personalize an existing one by matching your graphics, fonts, colors and voice to your current marketing. Just give Mike a call. He can show you how to get a FREE 60-day trial with SwiftPage E-Marketing so you can make your email marketing even more effective.

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