Email marketing is a tried and tested direct marketing strategy that involves marketing solutions through electronic mail (Email). Email marketing may be better understood in the context of offline world, where direct mails are sent to prospective customers, printed newsletters are mailed to subscribers and advertisements are printed in subscription magazines/ newspapers. The only difference is that of the medium in use.

Benefits

Email marketing uses electronic media that renders it much cheaper and faster than any of its possible alternative mediums. It is a dynamic and interactive tool in the hands of the Internet marketers that may be utilized innovatively to create and maintain customers without waiting for an initiative.

With a suitable website tracking software, Email marketing can even be utilized to track down its effectiveness in terms of the number of visitors generated. Solicited Emails are a reliable and smart way to stay in touch with the visitors to your website, who showed enough interest to leave their names and email addresses at your website for future record. Email marketing is particularly effective in reaching out to your business to business (B2B) audience.

Negatives of Email Marketing

The picture, however, may not be desirably pleasant, if the marketing strategy is not implemented with finesse. It is frequently witnessed that Emails are not drafted with much caution, unlike in the case of its offline version. As a result, the Emails are often marked as spam entries in the targeted inboxes without much thought. The worst part is that companies still keep sending Emails to the same Email addresses, thereby running the risk of being blacklisted by the ISPs. The ideal approach should be to build a long-term brand name rather than race to achieve a certain target statistic.

Types of Emails

Double Opt-in, Single Opt-in and Double Opt-out are all solicited Emails, wherein explicit response from the recipient triggers the sending of the Emails. While Single Opt-in Email is sent when a user signs up for an Email subscription, Double Opt-in takes place when he confirms his/ her subscription by responding to the automatically generated Email. Double Opt-out, on the other hand, concerns unsubscribing wherein the recipient first unsubscribes and then confirms termination of the subscription.

Conclusion

Cheaper, interactive and forward-able – Email marketing spells nothing less than a revolution in the electronic marketing circles that can be timed and targeted to precision. It is all the way a boon for the marketers, only subject to polished and judicious use of it.