Email Marketing – The Pros And Cons of Marketing With Email
Many small businesses are considering jumping into the world of email marketing. Email marketing has many different advantages, but it also has a few drawbacks that you need to keep in mind. The truth is that when used in the correct fashion it can be an extremely powerful and cost effective way of promoting your business and producing more sales. Once you learn about the pros and cons of email, you will be able to begin your own campaigns and get started down the path towards increased success and profitability.
The Advantages of Email Marketing
There are several key benefits to running an email marketing campaign. One of the most important is how cost efficient is can be. There is no other form of direct marketing that is as cheap as email marketing is. A 2005 study by the Winterberry Group found that for every dollar spent on email marketing, $ 15.50 was earned in return. There is much relevant data pointing to email marketing having a superior ROI than telemarketing, direct mail campaigns, radio or billboard advertisements and more.
Another advantage that email has is that you can quickly get your message across, and you can reach your customers and prospects in a place where they are comfortable communicating. If you have an idea for a new sale or promotion for the upcoming weekend, you can inform all of your customers about that immediately. With print advertising, traditional direct mail or anything else, the turnaround time could have been days or possibly even a week or more.
One of the real strengths to running an email campaign is how effectively you can track the results that it produces. You will be able to see every click that is made to your website as a result of the email, and you will be able to see statistics such as how many people read the message, how many times they read it, if they ended up making a purchase and on down the line.
There is no other form of marketing or advertising that produces such an array of in-depth statistics. It's an invaluable way to track your marketing efforts, and make the most out of every dollar you put into promotion.
Finally, another important advantage to email marketing that you will want to remember is that it's the perfect way to convert prospects over a long period of time. No matter how great your products or services may be, not every person will be immediately ready to make a purchase or investment. Email marketing is the perfect tool to continue chipping away at those prospects over the long haul. By developing a relationship with each prospect and providing them with useful information, you will gain their trust and stay at the forefront of their mind.
The Disadvantages of Email Marketing
The largest disadvantage of email marketing is that so many people today are fed up with spam. All of our accounts are flooded with wasted emails everyday, and it's a worldwide plague of the largest scale. Because of this, many people are wary about opening up emails from businesses, or about trusting anything that they see in their inbox.
You can help combat this problem by being as transparent as possible. This means making it easy for people to see who is sending your message and what it's about. It also means ensuring that all of your email addresses are used with permission, and you never purchase a list or steal addresses from another website.
Another disadvantage with email marketing is that far too many small business owners or managers know how to make a campaign work for them. Perhaps they try using gimmicks or copying an email that somebody else sent out. However, a much more effective strategy is sticking within your own identity, playing to your strengths and providing your prospects and customers with exactly what they are looking for.
Making Email Marketing Work for You
The bottom line is that the benefits of email marketing far outweigh the disadvantages. It's all about learning how to run your own campaigns in the right way, and for maximum success there will be some trial and error as you traverse that path. By not utilizing email campaigns you're missing out on a huge opportunity to help your business become more efficient and more profitable.