E-mail might seem like a cost-effective way to deliver your marketing messages.
For the most part, it is because you can send personalised, targeted,and interest-specific messages to a large number of people. The value of e-mail marketing doesn’t end with the cost, however. E-mail marketing has certain advantages over other forms of direct marketing for your business and for the people who request and receive your e-mails.

Asking for immediate action

You won’t have to wait around too long to determine whether an e-mail message was successful. According to marketing studies 80% of the e-mail you send is opened in the first 48 hours after delivery.

After an e-mail is opened, it doesn’t take long for your audience to take immediate action because people can take action on an e-mail with one click of the mouse. Immediate actions include:

• Opening and reading the e-mail
• Clicking a link
• Clicking a Reply button
• Forwarding
• Printing the e-mail
• Saving the e-mail

Gathering feedback

E-mail is a two-way form of communication, and even commercial e-mail can be used to gather feedback and responses from your audience. People can easily reply to e-mails, and many consumers love to share their opinions when it’s easy for them to do so. Feedback from e-mails comes in two basic categories:

 1: Stated feedback happens when someone

• Fills out an online form
• Fills out an online survey
• Sends a reply

2: Behavioral feedback happens when you track

• Clicks on links
• E-mail open rates
• E-mails forwarded to friends

If you aren’t receiving replies and feedback from your marketing e-mails, you probably aren’t asking for them.

Generating awareness

When was the last time you mailed thousands of postcards, and your customers began crowding around copy machines trying to duplicate the postcard so they can stick stamps to them and forward the message to their friends? E-mail programs have a Forward button with which users can easily send a copy of your e-mail to one or more people in your recipient’s address book. Our email marketing system provides a trackable forward link that you can insert in your e-mails so you can find out who is forwarding your e-mails. Learn more

Staying top-of-mind

If you send periodic e-mails with valuable content, people who aren’t ready to buy right away are more likely to remember you and your business when they become ready to buy. If your content is valuable enough to save, your prospects and customers might even create an inbox on their desktop with your company name on it and start filing your e-mails for future reference. When they pull them out to read again, your message is communicated again.