The Growth of Email Marketing
Email marketing includes emails sent to enhance the relationship with a business and its customers, and emails sent to acquire new customers or get customers to purchase something. As Internet-use increases, so does that of emails read and sent by Internet-users. Wikipedia’s “Email Marketing” says that more than half of Internet-users check their email every day, and that firms in the United States alone spent more than $400 million on email marketing in 2006. The United Kingdom, also, has definitely had its fair share of success with email marketing! In 2009, email marketing UK rose an estimated 15% to £292m, says Wikipedia’s “Email Marketing.”
What All the Fuss is About
So what’s all the fuss about anyway? Why has email marketing become so popular? For many reasons, indeed, it has become the preferable version of direct-mail marketing over the “snail-mail” form. For one, email marketing is instant – you don’t have to wait for the post office to deliver it. Two, it is also convenient in that email marketing services provide ways of tracking and calculating how many emails are opened or just discarded without being viewed – which means companies learn what works and what doesn’t. Third, you can cater specifically to your customers’ needs and make the emails more personal – because they’re not sent out to everyone as a direct-mail letter might be – emails are only sent out to people who have requested them by signing up to receive them. Fourth, emails are less time-consuming – there’s no stuffing envelopes, applying postage, printing or anything else like that. Fifth, they are better for the environment and provide less trash. And finally, there’s no postage! Aaaaahhhhh. Saving money always makes a marketer happy!
And It Keeps Growing and Growing Even More!
Email marketing is not expected to go away any time soon! With more and more people paying bills online, shopping in online stores (rather than out of printed catalogs) and sending more emails than personal letters – the mailbox may begin to be checked a lot less often than it once was – perhaps only when people know to expect something. If you were to send out a direct mail letter with a timely offer – the recipient may not even know it’s in the mailbox for days or even weeks, because he or she conducts so much of their business online, they don’t bother to check it. Make sure that you are keeping up with the times and advertising your business online – through email marketing. It would be a sad, sad day if you gave up the more than half of Internet users who check their emails every day – who would read YOUR email the very same day you sent it! Don’t be scared of technology. Embrace it, and let email marketing work for you!