What is E-mail Marketing?

by: kelly@alphaomegaads

You have probably heard of email marketing and are wondering what exactly email marketing is and why you should be taking advantage of it.

So, what is email marketing?

Email marketing is a powerful marketing tool that uses a direct digital marketing approach. Through use of email, you can promote your business’s products or services. Helping to keep your customers aware of new products or services you offer and engaged with your website and social media platforms.

The history behind emailing and email marketing.

We must first talk about the history behind electronic mail more commonly known today as email. The first email dated back to 1971 by a Computer Engineer named Ray Tomlinson. The message he sent was nothing more than a string of letters and numbers with no real meaning behind them. This is when usage for the “@” symbol was introduced.

On May 1, 1978, the first unsolicited mass email was sent out by a Marketing Manager at Digital Equipment Corp by the name of Gary Thuerk. With a product launching on December 20th, of that year he wanted to reach as many people as possible to let them know about this new product. So, with a list of about 400 emails, Mr. Thuerk sent the first mass email. Through this email Thuerk said they sold between $13 million and S14 million worth of the product.

How has emailing grown since then?

Though it is one of the oldest established communication methods still being used today it is still largely being used. In fact, currently 333.2 billion emails are sent and received daily. Though social media has grown quickly in popularity over the years it does not measure up to the growth of email users. For example, Facebook at the time of this post has 2.93 billion users. Meanwhile it is forecasted that by the end of 2022 there will be over 4.3 billion email users. Simply put not everyone likes social media but everyone has an email address which is why emailing remains to be a popular form of communication.

What does this all mean? How does email marketing measure up to other marketing methods, you ask?

Well Pay Per Click Ads are great for bringing in new customers but poorly applicable when it comes to maintaining a relationship with the new and existing customers. On the other hand, email marketing can be used for both.

With businesses currently seeing a ROI of $32-$46 for every $1 spent in email marketing, email marketing plays a pivotal role in your business’s successful marketing strategy. It increases brand awareness, helps to build trust and a relationship with the customer, while keeping them engaged and generating leads.

Email marketing can help you build a relationship with your audience while also driving traffic to your blog, social media, or anywhere else you’d like folks to visit. You can even segment your emails and target users by demographic so you’re only sending people the messages they want to see most.

Here is a video to help you with understanding what email marketing is and how it helps you:

So, how do you get started with email marketing?

But how do you build an audience of people to send emails to as part of your internet marketing efforts in the first place? First you must build your subscription list. There are plenty of ways to do this, but the most common is often to offer a gift of some sort. For example, a discount on a product or service, or maybe free shipping for signing up to your subscription list. Send them the gift promised to them to their email address and now you have their email address for future email marketing campaigns.

Now that you have an audience what do you do with them?

As your audience grows you can use emails to have conversations with your customers. Email is a great marketing tool, but it can help your business in other ways, too. Consider taking the occasional break from your regular marketing content to send out surveys, tell you customers how much you appreciate them after buying from you, following up after an abandoned cart, or just say hello. Not only does it give your audience a chance to provide you with valuable feedback, but it also allows them to get more insight into the person behind the business.

Email marketing Do’s and Don’ts

Do’s:

Email marketing also allows you to run A/B tests of a subject line or call to action to identify the best performing message by using email marketing software that can also be configured to easily send out emails. Contact a member of Alpha Omega Ads today to get started on your marketing email campaign.

Don’ts:

Only send when you really need to. Once someone has trusted you with their email address, don’t abuse that trust. Flooding your audience’s inbox with superfluous emails will cause them to lose interest or unsubscribe entirely. Focus on sending them relevant, engaging messages about the stuff they like, and they’ll be loyal for a long time to come.

Email marketing on your own?

Well, here are some well known platforms that help you grown your subscription list and you need no experience to create your first email marketing campaign.

• MailChimp
• Constant Contact
• Sendinblue
• Benchmark

To list a few.

The moral of the story is though email marketing is imperative to any small to large business or organization. When used strategically it can show a huge return on investment. If you ever find that your business or organization needs help with growing your subscriber list, or maintaining an email relationship with your clients, Alpha Omega Ads is here to help. Email marketing is just one of the many services we offer. Schedule a consultation to see if we can help with your marketing campaign. For more articles like this subscribe to our subscription list below.