E-mail marketing, along with pop-ups, was one of the first ventures into online marketing. It sparked a new era in annoyance (think of all the VI@gr@ emails you’ve received over the years) but also provided fantastic return on investments (well someone must be buying the stuff online).
E-mails are a fantastic part of an overall marketing strategy for a number of reasons:
- They’re a cheap and easy way to communicate with your customers
- They’re a cheap and easy way to divide your customers into sub-sets and target them accordingly
- They’re a cheap and easy way of gathering analysis on how your customers interact with your brand
- Bottom line – they’re cheap and easy
However, it is because of their cheap-and-easyness, that they come undone. During research for my thesis, I interviewed a person in charge of a marketing department in a larger multinational corporation. They told me that they sent out 4 – 5 e-mail campaigns Per Day. That’s a huge amount of information being sent and collected. What I found was interesting however was that they also told me that for their ‘premium customers’ they still posted them invitations, letters or flyers. The impact that a real life letter has over a virtual e-mail is without question.
What e-mail marketing has brought to the marketing party so to speak is that it has given companies an option to make contact with their customers, employees or suppliers in more than one medium. The key thing to remember however is that “The Medium is the Message”. If emails are cheap and easy, is that what you want your customers to think of your company as well?
