Email
marketing
Email marketing is a form of direct marketing which
uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial
or fundraising messages to an audience. In its broadest
sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer
could be considered email marketing. However, the term
is usually used to refer to:
* Sending emails with the purpose of enhancing the
relationship of a merchant with its current or old customers
and to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business.
* Sending emails with the purpose of acquiring new customers
or convincing old customers to buy something immediately.
* Adding advertisements in emails sent by other companies
to their customers.
Researchers estimate that as of 2004 the Email Marketing
industry's revenues has surpassed the $1 billion/yr
mark.
email marketing is popular with companies because:
* It is extremely cheap. Compared to direct mailing
or printed newsletters the costs are negligible. The
advertiser does not need to pay for production, paper,
printing or postage.
* It is instant, as opposed to a mailed advertisement,
an email arrives in a few seconds or minutes.
* It lets the advertiser "push" the message
to its audience, as opposed to a website that waits
for customers to come in.
* It is easy to track. An advertiser can track bounce-backs,
positive or negative responses, click-throughs, rise
in sales.
* It has been proven successful when well done.
* When most people switch on their computer the first
thing they do is check their email.
* Specific types of interaction with messages can trigger
other messages to be automatically delivered.
Many companies use email marketing to communicate with
existing customers, but many other companies send unsolicited
commercial email, also known as spam.
Illicit email marketing antedates legitimate email
marketing, since on the early Internet (see Arpanet)
it was not permitted to use the medium for commercial
purposes. As a result, marketers attempting to establish
themselves as legitimate businesses in email marketing
have had an uphill battle, hampered also by criminal
spam operations billing themselves as legitimate
email marketing terms
* Auto-responders: Automatic replies sent by the email
software of the recipient after receipt of an email.
* Bounce backs: email sent back to the server that originally
sent the email.
* Bounce rate: Ratio of bounced emails to total emails
sent.
* Bulk, bulking: Terms used by spammers to refer to
their line of work. Mostly synonymous with spam or UCE.
* Call to action: Words in the email that entice recipients
to do something.
* Click-through: The action of clicking on a link.
* Click-through rate (CTR): Ratio of click-troughs to
total emails sent.
* Commercial email: Any email sent for commercial purpose;
for instance, an advertisement to buy a product or service,
an order confirmation from an online store, or a paid
subscription periodical delivered by email. Commercial
email is not synonymous with spam; see unsolicited commercial
email below.
* Demographic: Characteristic of a group of email recipients.
* Format: emails can be sent in plain text, HTML, or
Microsoft's rich text format.
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