The world of digital marketing has undergone massive growth. In this current era, advertisers have the luxury to choose among numerous marketing options depending on their requirements.  In spite of this advancement, there is one mode of marketing which is still the most frequently used i.e. Email Marketing.  The email came into existence in the 1970s, but is still relevant. 

Definition of email marketing:

Email marketing is a form of direct marketing which is used by brands to send promotional messages to their existing as well as potential customers. Simply put, it’s a mail sent via an electronic medium which advertises the products and services.  It’s a way to leverage the power of email to reach customers for business promotion. Direct emails between the brands and prospects certainly build trust and develop a strong relationship among them. Emails help the brand to acquire new customers as well as retaining existing customers for longer and turning them into repeat customers. For an effective email marketing campaign, each organization must maintain a database of emails which are to be targeted.  For acquiring email ids organizations can use numerous tactics.  Some of which are below:

  • Create a Landing page which should have a clear Call to Action and a Signup button. For every new user Sign Up should pop up.
  • Provides offers like free eBook download, Free trial version of the software for each signup.
  • Use social media channels to share your sign up form so that your customers may connect and sign up. 
  • One time coupons or discounts for a few lucky subscribers.

Types of emails: 

  • Promotional email: These are direct emails which are intended to promote the products and services.  Discount offers and other special offers are being sent across through these emails.  A link to the product is often mentioned on the emails. 
  • Newsletter: This is one of the best ways to keep in touch with your customers. These are usually sent to users who have subscribed for it. A newsletter is mostly sent out on a weekly or monthly basis which informs the users about how the company is performing,  insight into sales stats and announcing upcoming events. The newsletter has a conversational tone which is aimed to strengthen the existing relationship with the clients. 
  • Notification emails: These are sent out every time the customer makes a purchase or reviews a product but doesn’t place the order.  These emails often remind the users that they haven’t visited the brand for a long time. 

Advantages of Email Marketing:

  • Can be personalized: we can send highly targeted data via email marketing. Brands have control over who sees the email. Advertisements on social channels, Radio, TV are more generalized but with email marketing, customized stuff can be sent across to the users based on their interest. We can further segment and categorize the emails based on location, age and interest areas of the targeted customers. But what if you only got their name? You don’t have to worry about it because their services out there that lets you email search by name
  • Cheap: As compared to the latest marketing techniques, email is most budgets friendly. It is extremely easy to set up and can be shared by just clicking a button.  Create a group of users with similar interest and target them with personalized emails.  It doesn’t involve any print cost, postage charges or any advertisement rates. 
  • Reach larger audience: Email marketing is the most preferred avenue of marketing especially when it comes to reaching a larger audience. Each user on the internet has an email account. With over 4 billion active email ids, there is a massive user base which can be targeted with effective use of email marketing. 
  • Higher ROI: Sending personalized emails to the users certainly maximizes return on Investment. The ultimate objective of any marketing campaign is to bring value to the organization in the form of conversion.  Emails are highly capable of driving conversions to be it in the form bringing sale or lead. Click through rate on email is higher as compared to a post on a social channel. With each email sent out, brand awareness is enhanced. 
  • Supports multiple formats: Email supports a wide range of formatting as compared to any other marketing medium. An email can accommodate a simple text message as well as a flashy graphical image. Emails can have audio, video, clickable button or links to products or landing pages. 
  • Can be tracked: The performance of an email marketing campaign can be monitored through analytics tools.  The campaign can be tracked for various metrics like click-through ratebounce rate or conversion rate.  Using this detailed information advertisers can track if they are able to achieve the desired outcome.
  • Respond quickly and shorten the marketing cycle: E-mail delivery time is unmatched by traditional direct mail advertisements. Depending on the number of e-mails sent, it takes tens of seconds to several hours to complete tens of thousands of e-mails. Similarly, undeliverable e-mails. It can also be returned immediately or returned within a few days, and a marketing cycle can be completed in a few days. The direct mail delivery time is usually 3 days or longer. Even in the same city, it usually takes more than 1 day to arrive. From the start of the letter to the recovery of all the bounce letters, it may take more than one month. time. Although telemarketing can also convey information to target users, it is obviously unrealistic to make tens of thousands of calls within a few days, at least taking up a lot of human resources.

Characteristics of Email Marketing:

  • Personalized mail, strong affinity.
  • Colorful forms of expression: multimedia, pictures, texts, sounds and sounds, deep memory.
  • The target customer is precisely locked.
  • Improve the fair monitoring system, and monitor and count how many emails are read and read.
  • Multi-function: can be entered into the member library, easy to return, subscribe, easy to forward, easy to save.
  • The transmission success rate is high.
  • Sending and receiving in seconds.

Few Media Metric Terminologies used in Email Marketing:

  • Impressions
  • Clicks
  • Click Through Rate (CTR)
  • Open Rate
  • Click Rate
  • Delivery Rate
  • Audience Database
  • Personalization
  • List Clean-Up
  • Unsubscribe/Subscribe
  • Bounce Rate
  • Bounces
https://www.knowonlineadvertising.com/marketing/email-marketing/list-of-email-marketing-platforms/