What is Email Marketing?

I remember a time when we had to make a trip to the store to buy envelops, paper, and pens. Then on our way back home or to the office we stopped at the local Post Office to buy book after expensive book of stamps. Then we we prepared our correspondence and had to make another trip to the post office and wait in long lines to send our marketing messages to our customers only to have them thrown in the trash without ever being opened. Thank the marketing gods that technology has advanced and cut our costs dramatically. Email marketing is simply defined as the email that you send to a customer or potential customer. Email marketing is usually broken down into three segments:

• Sending direct promotional emails to try and acquire new customers or persuade existing customers to buy again.
• Sending emails designed to encourage customer loyalty and enhance the customer relationship.
• Placing your marketing messages or advertisements in emails sent by other people.

What makes electronic email so popular?

1. Sending email is cheaper than most other forms of communication.
2. Email lets you deliver your message to the people.
3. Email marketing has proven successful for those who do it (Well, those that do it right).

Email marketing is a wonderful tool for the multi-channel marketer, however, it has its problems. First the designing and delivering of email messages to the right people can be a very complex task. This complexity can be minimized by using email services such as Constant Contact or iContact these email marketing services offer businesses solutions to their email and survey campaign management. A list of the 2009 top ten online email marketing services and reviews can be viewed at http://email-marketing-service-review.toptenreviews.com/. Next you have to get the recipients to read and respond to your message. Then finally you have to measure and analyze the results.

IMPORTANT: Don't be a Spammer!!!

If you send emails to people without the email owners permission then it is SPAM. If you are accused of sending spam, then you may have your email accounts

closed down, your website shut off, and your reputation tarnished. Some parts of the world it is against the law.