Email Marketing- A Quick and Cost Effective Way to Reach Your Target Audience

Email marketing is an important component of a successful Internet marketing strategy, and its benefits include:

1. Staying in front of your target market
Email marketing allows your company to stay in front of your current customers and to build long-lasting relationships and enhance connections.

2. Measurability
Many aspects of email campaigns can be measured, such as the number of opens, click-through rate, and conversions. These key metrics allow for optimization of future email campaigns.

3. Cost effective
Email marketing is a more cost effective method of communicating, as it does not include the cost of printing or postage that direct mail requires.

4. Immediate messages
Messages are delivered immediately, allowing for quick notifications and responses to promotions and sales.

5. Increase traffic to website
By embedding links into your emails, customers can easily access specific pages containing relevant information on your site with just a click.

6. Flexibility
Email marketing provides great flexibility in the type of emails sent, such as newsletters and promotions.

Make sure to take advantage of the numerous benefits email marketing provides.

Effectiveness of Email Marketing

If you’re looking for an increased return on investment regarding your marketing efforts look no further. When it boils down to it, the most effective marketing channel is still Email Marketing, as indicated in the chart below. The best thing about email marketing is that it gets better as you use it. Once you have the basics, consistent branding, list building, message crafting, and email delivery, you’ll be able to increase the effectiveness. According to a JupiterResearch report, using Web analytics to target email campaigns can produce nine times the revenues and eighteen times the profits of broadcast mailings. With all that being said, implementing sophisticated analytics and tactics such as segmentation, targeting, multichannel integration, A/B testing and social sharing is the best place to start. Nonetheless, it’s almost a no brainer when it comes to using email marketing. Whether you are doing it in-house, just using the basics, or whether you outsource it to an internet marketing agency, for sophisticated analytics and tactics, Email Marketing is an opportunity you can’t pass up.

Mix Online Marketing Strategies for Optimal Results

To reach the greatest number of customers, it is important to utilize a mix of online marketing strategies. These strategies include: Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC), Local Listings, Social Media Marketing (SMM), and Email Marketing. A brief description of each of these strategies follows.

The goal of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to improve the ranking of a website’s position in search engine results pages. This strategy enables your website to be seen by your target audience before the competitions’ websites.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC) provides more control over placement of your ads and website on search engine results pages. Businesses may control when, where, and how often their ads show up when related searches occur on search engines.

Local Listings are especially useful for companies providing a product or service in a specific location. They are displayed in search results and may include information such as a phone number, address, map, hours of operation, and specials. This is a great way to connect with the local community.

With the rapid rise in the use of social media, the importance of Social Media Marketing (SMM) has never been more important. SMM offers a way to keep in constant touch and get feedback from your target audience.

Email Marketing is best used to encourage current customers to return to your business. This may be achieved by promoting specials, informing of upcoming events, and thanking customers for their business.

Each company should take the opportunity to customize their online marketing mix to best suit their needs.

Back to the Basics with Testing for Internet Marketers

It seems like business owners have forgotten the fundamentals of marketing and that it includes testing. “Almost any question can be answered cheaply, quickly, and finally by a test campaign, said Claude Hopkins the author of Scientific Advertising (1923). Although the book is dated, scientific advertising is critical to SEO, Pay per Click, Website Design, and Email Marketing. It is not just important to determine what works but also learning what doesn’t work to helped the business get to the point of generating leads and converting them into sales. In today’s environment, web analytics and conversion optimization are linked to scientific advertising or marketing. Continue to test your landing pages, ad copy, and call to action.

For more information, read “Always Be Testing” for tips, guidance, and tools.

Web Analytics Trends for 2010

It is becoming increasingly important for companies to employ web analytics in their online marketing strategies. Web analytics is a continuously growing industry despite the recent tough times that many businesses are currently facing. This has made it obvious that web analytics is here to stay and can help companies to reinvent their brand in a changing business environment.

As analytical metrics become more advanced, the basic numbers behind web usage begin to say less than advanced information on the consumers that represent these numbers. A common trend in web analytics is an overall increasingly personalized content of the measurements. Through this approach, companies can have a useful idea of their target and actual audiences and this information is useful in that it can be incorporated into new and improved marketing campaigns!

Social media will play a growing role in the future of marketing, as well. Web analytics will track how successful different social networking sites are at sending buyers to a site; also, mobile devices are being used more and more to access the web, so the necessary web content formatting is critical. Web analytics has a growing impact on the way everyday business is done and the current trends show that it is a necessary component to successful business on the web!

Email Marketing Metrics Report

According to the “Email Marketing Metrics Report” by MailerMailer, 12.5% of unique marketing emails were opened in the second half of 2009. The figured shown a .7% decline in comparison to the first half of 2009, then the open rate was 13.2%. The report shows that email open and click through rates vary by industry & the size of the list.

The report stated that for large email lists, the religious and spiritual organizations had the highest open rates. The report suggested that smaller lists may be better target email communications with more relevant content.

We would agree that smaller lists typically perform better in email blasts and campaigns. In general, the lists are developed through local networking, events, industry events or friends. The content of the emails is relevant to the local market or is usually measured with off-line and online sales/leads. This report demonstrates the importance of targeted, relevant, and measurable email marketing practices.

Let us know how email marketing is impacting your bottom-line & trending for your industry.

Email Marketing with Value Added Features

It seems like every organization under the Sun is using email marketing. The major question is “are they doing it effectively & efficiently? This is not just in regards to sending targeted promotions but developing, maintaining, and communicating on an ongoing basis.

We think that one of the biggest challenges is efficiency. Many businesses or marketers have a list and an email template, but are they organizing their websites, online forms, and other touch points to gather or verify the email list? In our experience, we do not see a collective effort to nurture or verify leads. Too many of the processes are manual and require numerous hours of work and manpower. It’s time to start integrating databases, email software, and verifying at every possible touch point.

The most effective way to do this is by using email/event triggers and online forms that connect your website with your email marketing tool. There are numerous email service providers in the marketplace that provide this feature. Be sure that when you are comparing email service providers that they offer email/event based triggers, online forms, and are connected to email marketing database or email list.

Don’t forget to Test!