Email Marketing is Still Effective if Done Right
Pin ItEmail Marketing has a negative connotation with people, due to years of spam and junk mail filling people’s inbox. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can use email marketing to reach out to old customers or potential customers. Effective email marketing can take your company to the next level.
There is more than one type of email marketing campaign a company can undertake. One is for sending a marketing message to a list purchased from a company. This has some advantages for companies in certain positions, but not necessarily all of them. A more effective, targeted strategy for email marketing is to send information to potential customers that have already shown an interest in your product. Through lead capture forms on your website or Facebook page, you have a list of people who already willing and excited to hear your message.
Using a list requires a company to have a very specific position. With advances in spam detection and prevention, it is much harder to reach customers through in this way. And even if you do reach them, you don’t know if they are going to even open and read it. A 2010 study shows that, at best, only get 34% of recipients will open your email if you send it using a list. Unless your message is very strong, it is very difficult to get much return on what you are sending out.
That said, using a list is a great way to send out a message to a large masses of people. You can create a greater amount of brand knowledge and just let people know that your company exists. It always helps people learn who you are and what you do. Not all of these people are potential customers, but hopefully you can get referrals to someone that is.
The other option for your email marketing campaign is to use a campaign using emails gathered from lead capture forms on your website. This method allows you to target your campaign to customers that are already interested and have knowledge of your product. Instead of trying to blindly target people who have no interest/knowledge in what you do; you can target people who are already engaged with what you are selling. Would you rather get the guy who uses your product once a year to use it three times, or the person who uses it 200 times to use it 50 more times. Or the person who is interested in switching from a rival who just wants that one piece of persuasion to leave their current provider. Unlike the mass blanket marketing that a list provides, this is targeted to people who are already interested and willing to receive your message. Therefore, it is more effective and reliable than just mass emailing.
So if you want to reach people through email, these are some great ways to do it. Do not rely on email as your only outreach method as spam filters and open rates do not leave it as the best way to communicate. Even still, you can target people who are in a better position to receive your message and can drive traffic to your website.