Marketing is the key to everything. Wonder why these cosmetic brands and toothpaste peeps and those footwear people have celebrities endorsing their products and wonder why they pay wads of money in this process? Because, marketing! One needs their product or brand to go into the audience. They want it to get popular. To go viral and why, this we all know. No hiding. That is exactly why marketing people are in such a demand. Why mediocre marketers kill the whole scene and why creativity and intelligence is included in the requirements of marketers.
Usually, when the word ‘marketing’ is heard somewhere, bells ring. Yes, the traditional marketing we all are talking about. The sales person ringing us up and asking us our precious two minutes, the way they used to explain the perks of products and persuade us to buy that certain product. And generally, all of us had fake smiles plastered to our faces all the time and at times, we had even rudely told them to get out because we didn’t have time for them all.
But then, times changed. And technology developed. Now we have technology that can even let us calculate the depth of the galaxy or whatever! Now, what would we all be when we don’t use this in the marketing? And that is where the digital marketing comes in the picture. Digital marketing is the most, most effective, as it has proven to be! We have perks that will help us do better and make our product reach the audience effectively. Also, digital marketing replaced direct marketing as it is time taking and not that effective and most of the customers get annoyed by the calls.
We have the word of mouth marketing which is also effective, well, more effective than the traditional way of marketing. There are reasons for this too. When we are planning to take a product, the first thing we want is the reviews of it, the way it runs, the way it is and the drawbacks, everything. And this is where word of mouth marketing hits the run, due to the reviews being heard personally being valued highly and that’s another story.
Digital marketing includes the advertisements on TV, newspapers and more. For instance, if we talk about TV, the marketing that happens there is with the advertisements. Be it that advertisement of those branded cosmetics with international stars, or that motorbike add with mesmerizing scenarios, people enjoy looking at the advertisements but they won’t go around buying them, inspired from those ads. Neither will the stars affect them in anyway, although cost a lot. And when it comes to newspaper, representation is confined only to pictures and the whole illustration can’t be said wholly. Also, the maximum time one can put this adds is just for a day.
And that is why we need to get Email Marketing in the picture. There are many reasons as of why email marketing should be opted. We need an email address as a primary mode of connection. Even while browsing online or shopping something, email address is something we all need and we all have too. Unless you are living in the igloos of antarctica or something. Then again, who knows, there might be an internet connection there too! Surveys tell us that email marketing is the most productive method of marketing these days because most of the time is spent online and there is the chance of reaching a higher and huge number of people with this methodology.
Usually we have two types of emails that marketers send us, if classifies broadly. One is the opt-in mails we receive from the providers, that is, we recieve mails only from people we opted and they are not unwanted. These mails we receive are highly genuine and useful. Still confused? Let us take an example. For instance, shopping, which we all do, all the time. Now you go across shopping sites online to get anything and there you find some authentic shopping sites which gives you the exact information you need through mails when you sign up with them! You may receive the information about the discount coupons or the hottest deals and similar information when you register. And next comes the affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is commonly confused with referral marketing, as both forms of marketing use third parties to drive sales to the retailer. However, both are distinct forms of marketing and the main difference between them is that affiliate marketing relies purely on financial motivations to drive sales while referral marketing relies on trust and personal relationships to drive sales. Sometimes affiliate marketing is mostly unwanted, yet occasionally proves to be successful.
Since we have talked all this about email marketing, let’s talk about the perks, advantages we have there!
1.Return on Investment
Highest return of investment found here. Yes, compared to the other sources of digital media marketing, email gets you the most highest return on investment. Why? Because we have the perk of reaching directly to the inbox of the customer and having his attention there. Due to this, email marketing has the highest revenue generating campaigns which are highly successful and fruitful to the investor/entrepreneur!
2.Reaches a large number of audience
This is another advantage which is totally helpful to the people on both ends. As mentioned earlier, the chances of the user knowing the product fully is much high when compared to the other ways of marketing. Due to the convenience of sending unlimited emails per day, we can reach a lot of audience per day and that’s that!
- Low of cost
Yes again, cheap and best. Talk about the resources we need to send an email? Potentially nothing but an internet connection and a good dear email. That is it. Well, not much if we talk about it. And certainly nothing if we compare with the advertisements we watch in TV, where everything is high profile and expensive. The sets, the cost of it and all. You don’t have such pell-mell if you talk about the emails! Easy peasy lemon squeasy.
4.Target Audience
Let’s see, talk about us marketing an antivirus. And we can actually target whom we are sending. A community, a group of people who will be interested in it. Think about marketing a lipstick to a group of boys. Will that work? No and it will be such a waste of time! That is exactly why we can customize the targets and send it to the people who will actually be interested in it, instead of wasting hours, sitting in front of your laptop and typing creative mails, sending them only to know it is not a fruitful attempt.
5.Geography based targets
Another advantage. We have such a big world with a population over 7 billion and not everything and everyone is the same. We have a set of restrictions and interests from place to place, time to time and country to country. Imagine the same antivirus we talked about and such a disappointment it would be if it were not allowed in a country due to some parallel world issue. Bummer. That is exactly why we can put up certain filters and use them while marketing!
6.High rate of conversions
Emails have high rate of conversions of prospects to customers, as you say, due to the the facility of reaching straight to the inbox of the user. Let us keep it real, the chances of us looking into a mail rather than looking into an advertisement of a product and buying it are really low. And now, that is where we have bigger rate of conversions of prospects into actual customers in the email marketing is really high. Another solid reason as of why we need to do this now!
7.Know the outcome
Well, this is something that will help us be better next time. In email marketing, we can easily know how many people have actually opened the mail, how many were interested in what we had to say and how many people had actually become our customers. And by this, we can know the outcome, predict it and grow better next time. So next time an investor runs a campaign, he/she can predict the outcome and know how well his marketing venture had done.
8.Frequent Communications
Why emails? This is why. Emails are pretty much easy and straightforward and easy too. That is why we have easier communications with customer regarding any issues they face and over time, you will build a strong, foolproof relationship with your customers. If you have a new product that is going to be launched and that needs to be reached to your customers or would-be reached customers, then here it is! Send them mails which talks about the offers, instead of the flyers!
9.Get more referral customers
That time is long gone where we used the magazine cuttings and clippings and send them to our friends and relatives when we thought the product was super good. Now, not so. Because who even does that now? This is where again, email marketing scores another run. So when you send your customer the latest offers of your product, chances are that they will forward it to their friend/family instantly!
10.Social media inclusion
Okay which one of us don’t have the facebook account? None. which of us don’t have a twitter? None, again. Which of us don’t have a linkedin account? None. That is why again, emails are hit. Emails are mandatory for any of these social media and then we can have the access to them and see the community of customers who like certain products. We can separate and segregate the customers according to our personalized filters and run the campaign accordingly and get more fruitful results!
- Personalization
Personalization always works. Tell me, which one is effective? Hi, Mr.User or Hi, Mr.XYZ? Clearly the latter. The effect is tremendous because it gives the user idea that we are not blindly selling our stock. It is really helpful because the user will appreciate the amount of time we have spent in knowing them and personalizing our mail according to them and this will definitely grab the attention of user, which in short, is good for your product and the dwell time on your website. Another run? Yes!
12.Catchy presentation
We always love things that our eyes love. Be it clothes, accessories, food, so then why should a mail be an exception? That’s why mail is not an exception. We can include really good content, pictures, videos, infographics or links to even more informative things and more. Everything is possible and the more catchy your mail is, with all the cool stuff in it, chances are that we get more response. Also, it reaches larger number of audience. Like that one time an mobile network ad went viral due to it’s really cool and catchy song. Or that chocolate ad which we all love. The question is, “how effective our mail is?”. Because the more effective it is, larger the audience will react!
- Upsell or Cross Sell
Another helpful feature of email marketing. So, let us talk about these terms first, just to make ourselves clear. When a user had bought something and that, as usual will be registered in the statistics and the next time there is an upgrade of the product, we can set aside the users that took the first product because psychology, usually people go with the upgrade of the same products and there comes the concept of an “up-sell”. So typically, when there is a new product of the same brand, we target the users that have taken one from it and we send them the mail regarding the new product. And cross sell is where we send things which is somehow related to the product which the user already have. Say, a charger and an earphone pack to a mobile phone user. Such things. Usually, these things we get them by the statistics that can be tracked using the e-mail marketing with the help of ESP/Database teams. People who have been using these can be congregated and they can be reached out using the mails. Simple.
These are the general perks we can discuss when it comes to the email marketing. The effective subject line, the compelling content of the mail and the simplicity and easy operating mails will help the entrepreneurs go far with marketing. Also, emails and internet, eco-friendly in the big picture!
About the author: Lavanya is a blogger at Happycheckout.in, a bookworm, dreamer and a do-er. Loves shopping online and reads inspirational biographies of famous personalities. Taking her steps towards entrepreneurship, she likes exploring the world and a believer of nirvana.