Does Email Marketing Still Work?

Email marketing is the act of transmitting a commercial message, usually through email, to an audience of recipients. In its most comprehensive sense, email marketing encompasses using email for marketing a product, service, or brand to current or potential customers. It also includes using email to transmit advertisements, request personal information, solicit donations or sales, and deliver business messages.

Despite being primarily a sales tool, email marketing has been successful in bringing in new customers through several different methods. Most email marketing campaigns use the direct marketing technique, which requires that businesses provide potential customers with information about their products or services through a marketing communication, such as mail, print, or Internet advertising. Direct marketing is often very cost-effective, especially when dealing with a small group of potential customers. However, it does require close contact between businesses and customers, and can also be quite time-consuming. This means that new customers may not be interested in purchasing your products right away, which can negatively impact your bottom line.

Email marketing is also quite effective at generating interest in your website. Many people rely on search engines to locate the information they need, which means that if you do not feature prominently in the results, your site may not even be visited. One way to combat this issue is to include links in your commercial email that take the reader directly to your website. This is called back-linking, which makes your company seem more credible and relevant to the audience you are trying to reach. You can incorporate back-links into your email marketing campaigns in a number of ways, such as including an “About” or “Contact Us” page, printing promotional email templates that include links, or including your company’s email address on business cards, letterheads, and envelopes.

Finally, when it comes to email marketing, you should focus on getting the most out of your first email campaign. This is the campaign that starts off with the promise to “do something nice for our customer today,” or an offer to meet someone for coffee or lunch. You should also give your potential customers a reason to want to transact with you, and remind them of your services or products on a regular basis. Make sure that your first email marketing campaign is not a one-shot deal and that you provide a great service to your clients on a regular basis. Only then will your email marketing work to its fullest extent.