What is Email Marketing?

What is Email Marketing?

We can define email marketing in several different ways from broad to specific. Email marketing is the act of sending out emails to customers, both current and prospective. 

Some key components to what a successful email marketing campaign does:

• Direct Email – Emails are sent directly to existing and potential customers
• Retention Email – Frequent and regular emails are sent to existing customers
• Email Placed Ads – Marketing ads are placed within emails sent by others

Let’s elaborate on these components:

Direct Emails: Direct email is like receiving a flyer from the business. In this kind of email, businesses can send announcements, special deals, coupons, or introductions about their product or services. The target audience in these emails can be existing customers or prospective customers who may or may not have heard about the business.

The business sees the receiver as a potential customer and wants to entice them with a good deal. The receiver may even have done business before and they want to do business once more, offering something else you might be interested in or, better yet, a better deal than before.

The purpose of direct emails is to be promotional. Businesses might offer a product or service, or they ask you to sign up for something. Potential customers are more likely to get these types of emails.

Laws against SPAM and customer sensitivity have become key elements to how businesses handle their email marketing practices.

Retention Email: Retention emails are like receiving printed newsletters. While still promotional in nature, retention emails attempt to retain customer loyalty by offering the customer something. This offer could range anywhere from coupons to up-to-date news on the latest products. 

Retention emails are sent out regularly. It could be a weekly or monthly basis, but usually, the business prefers to send mails more frequently to retain customer interest.

Why are these emails so frequent?  

The Internet is a global marketplace and competition place. 

Consumers have loads of information to look at and choose from. 

Additionally, the attention span of consumers is short, and you have to hold on to that attention span. 

One study reported that 55% of subscribers to promotional emails and newsletters delete the material without even looking at them.

Email Placed Ads: Another way to advertise via email is to get some advertisement space within another email. Many times, businesses that send out retention emails (newsletters) reserve space for other businesses to place their advertisements.

This can be beneficial for businesses, especially if businesses have studied the demographic that they are marketing to and the potential customers they could gain. Knowing what other types of businesses your potential customers go to and listen to is a great advantage because it allows them to strategically place your ads in emails likely to get clicks. 

It is also a benefit for the business with which businesses have an ad placed because they will know that their emails are being read and they can also do a bit of analytics work to determine where their customers are clicking.

In the market, there are different Email marketing software and services like MarZil.com that allow businesses to target specific demographics for better efficiency while sending emails. Additionally, there are even more advanced techniques that can personalize emails for specific people or organizations, which helps build an intimate business relationship with the customer as well as loyalty to the brand.

Email marketing campaigns can also be monitored once you have sent out emails to customers, both existing and potential. The data can be analyzed in several ways, including web analytics, downloads, search inquiries, and visits to promotional events and offline stores.