One option to market your business is to set up an e-mail campaign. You can use an email campaign to promote a new product, to advertise a special event, to offer a discount, or to solicit feedback. Implementing an email marketing campaign offers many rewards, but it is best to know some of the advantages and disadvantages before sending out a mass e-mail to your customers. Here are a few things to consider:
Advantages
- Relatively Low Cost: When compared to regular direct mail, the cost of sending email is extremely low. You do not have to pay for paper and ink, and there are no stamps to buy. Although there are some minor costs for getting everything set up and sent out, an e-mail marketing campaign is relatively cheap.
- Ease and Speed: Email campaigns are easy to put together because you can write the content of an email in a relatively short amount of time. You can update your customers quickly on sales and new products. You can also expect customers to respond to or act on the content of your e-mail fairly quickly. This fast response to campaigns provides businesses with timely results.
- Target a Specific Audience: Email campaigns are ideal for businesses that would like to target a certain kind of existing or potential customer. You can customize e-mail campaigns to almost any kind of target audience including specific geographic locations, demographics, or interests. When people are sent a personalized email, there is a higher likelihood that it will be effective.
- Easy to Test: Testing several different types of e-mail allows you to find the style and voice that work best. Businesses can orchestrate several different types of email campaigns, so that they can decide quickly which one works best.
Disadvantages
- Emails Going to the Spam Folder: When businesses send out emails as part of a marketing campaign, it is usually done without the permission of the customer. Most email services will mark these emails as spam, and the customer or potential customer will never see the message. This may even be true for customers who have enabled those emails to show up in their inbox. It all depends on the email service that they use. This disadvantage makes email marketing campaigns much less effective than they would be if the customer saw every marketing email you send.
- Negative Reaction from Customers: Some customers view email campaigns as impersonal and prefer a more direct or face-to-face contact. An unsolicited, mass email may cause the recipient to feel negatively about the business, and even if the email is tailored to their interests, they may still be annoyed to receive it. As a result, these kinds of customers often unsubscribe from or block future emails, meaning they are less likely to spend money with your business. So, if you do decide to set up an email campaign, tread lightly.
- Complying with Laws: Every email campaign must follow specific communication laws. These laws are designed to protect the consumer and to make sure that businesses do not abuse any marketing techniques. Some of these laws may compromise the effectiveness of an email marketing campaign. Find out what laws are in place and how they will affect the email campaign before you start.
- Making the Choice: Making the choice to do an email campaign or not is not easy. If you have only a small amount of money to spend on marketing, you need to decide whether an email marketing campaign is right for you. If you have some extra money to use, you may want to think about putting some of it into an email campaign and seeing what happens While it may seem like a better idea to put your money towards social media marketing, Avinash Kaushik says that you may want to think again: “Email remains an immensely credible and profitable channel, with an immense reach to boot. To not have it as an active part of your marketing portfolio is sub-optimal.”
