Date: Friday, July 6, 2007

How important is email marketing?

The significance of email marketing has been long overlooked by businesses. However, with recent Government statistics indicating 80% of Internet users regularly use the web to check and send email, it’s a medium we should all be taking advantage of.

A Website isn’t Enough

While it’s essential for a company to have a functioning website for marketing purposes, this doesn’t wipe out the need for email marketing. Many businesses fail to realise the potential of this medium and often neglect to use their mailing list to its full advantage. Their emails to list members are often hastily written or are intended merely to support the objectives of their website. While there is certainly nothing wrong with this, businesses should ideally be beginning to consider email marketing as a powerful tool in its own right.

The Advantages of Email Marketing

· It allows you to keep in touch with existing clients. There’s no point having a mailing list if you don’t use it! Email marketing is the perfect medium to keep your existing customers informed of special offers and new developments.

· It’s cost effective. Sending a targeted email is far more cost effective than sending postal direct mail.

· You can distribute information to a targeted audience. Potential and existing customers populate your database, which means that you can ensure your message is going out to interested parties.

· It drives traffic directly to your site. Having a dedicated mailing list of existing customers who will re-visit your site means that you don’t just have to rely on search engines to generate traffic.

· It delivers your advertisement instantly. Your message is distributed as soon as you click the send button, which means that you can start generating traffic straight away.

· It’s a green form of advertising. Postal direct mail can generate a lot of waste whereas an unwanted email can be deleted with no negative impact on the environment.

· It works! Statistics released by Doubleclick Inc, an Internet advertising company, show that email marketing is incredibly effective. In their survey, 82% of 1000 Internet users had made an online purchase in the past year due to an advertisement they had received via email. This figure had grown a massive 20% since the previous year.

The Future

The future of email marketing had once looked doubtful as threats from spam filters and increasingly busy inboxes discouraged many marketers. However, with the amount of spam decreasing by around 13% a year and the total spend for email marketing estimated to hit £1.1 billion by 2010, it seems that email marketing is bigger business then ever. So, if you’re the proud owner of a well-populated email list, isn’t it time you started making the most of it?