What is email marketing?

Email Marketing is an online marketing method that delivers valuable information to target users through email with the user's prior permission. Email marketing has three basic factors: user permission, email delivery of information, and information being valuable to users. If one of the three factors is missing, it cannot be called effective email marketing. It is a direct marketing method that uses email to conduct commercial communication with audience customers. It is also widely used in the field of online marketing. Email marketing is the oldest method of Internet marketing. Email marketing is older than most website promotion and Internet marketing methods.

Basics

The definition of email marketing emphasizes three basic factors: based on user permission, delivering information through email, and information being valuable to users. If one of the three factors is missing, it cannot be called effective email marketing.

1. Based on user permission

There are many ways to express user permission, including online and offline. Online collection of email addresses generally includes website online registration, subscription, etc. Offline collection of email addresses generally includes exhibitions, business card exchanges, offline event collection, supermarket check-out collection, etc.

When users register online, sending a confirmation email for double-opt-in (activation confirmation) can ensure the accuracy of the email address, while enhancing the user's awareness of emails and improving permissions.

2. Transmitting information through Email

Transmitting information through Email is the technical foundation of email marketing. First of all, we must ensure the delivery of emails before we can talk about email marketing. To ensure the correct delivery of bulk emails, it is best to choose a third-party professional EDM service provider.

3. Information is valuable to users

Transmitting valuable information to users is the core link of permission-based email marketing. Mass email based on user permission is not necessarily email marketing. Only good column correlation and data classification can ensure that valuable information is delivered to users, which can be called true email marketing.

By integrating Email with SNS, Mobile, Web, etc., and using corresponding analysis tools and professional EDM systems, we can obtain more detailed user information and tracking behavior, and then conduct targeted emails. send.

Advantages

1. Low cost

As long as there is a mail server for email marketing, the cost of contacting 10 users is almost the same as contacting tens of thousands of users. But if you want to send more than a hundred emails, the situation is different, because this requires a dedicated server and a very large bandwidth. In particular, some free registered mailboxes also have limits on sending emails every day. In addition, the cost of sending an email is almost zero, because as long as the user's mailbox is found, it takes very little time to send the email.

2. Fast

Compared with other online marketing methods, email marketing is also very fast. Search engine optimization takes months, even years, of hard work to be fully effective. Blog marketing takes time and a lot of articles. SNS marketing requires spending time participating in community activities and building an extensive network of relationships. As long as you have email data in hand for email marketing, you can see the effects within a few hours of sending the email.

3. Precision

As long as emails can be delivered accurately, the customer conversion rate is still very high, much higher than other marketing methods. With the development of RSS marketing, blog marketing, etc. Timely communication of information to customers is no longer limited to the use of email.

4.. Take the initiative

According to customer needs, companies can formulate personalized content and proactively send company marketing information to customers to achieve the company's marketing purposes.

Disadvantages

Disadvantages of email marketing from a user perspective:

1. Users generally call it "spam". That is, the email content provided is The user is not interested.

2. Forcing users to receive emails without respecting their rights.

3. Dislike the email sender, thereby reducing your brand reputation. If your products or services leave a good impression in the minds of users, your spam marketing will have the effect of Counterproductive.

1. Application condition restrictions.

Email marketing is a new marketing method based on the Internet background. Due to the limitations of receiving conditions, emails require certain Internet equipment to receive and read. Unlike traditional letters, which can be viewed anytime and anywhere.

2. The market environment is immature.

Since the proportion of domestic Internet users is still relatively low, the audience of email marketing is still relatively small and its influence is limited. When companies formulate marketing plans, they usually do not use email marketing as the only or main marketing method. .

Many customers in China, where e-commerce is not yet popular, still prefer face-to-face communication and negotiation.

3. Mail transmission restrictions.

Due to limitations of network transmission speed, user email mailbox space capacity and other factors, not all information can be transmitted through email, which limits the application scope of email marketing to a certain extent.

4. Limitation of marketing effect.

The effectiveness of email marketing is affected by various factors such as information credibility, advertising content, style, email format, etc. Not all emails can achieve good marketing results. Especially for situations where the degree of positioning is relatively low, the marketing effect will be far lower than the normal level. Unauthorized "email marketing" is not only annoying, but may not achieve actual results at all.

5. Obstacles in information transmission.

Because some emails will be blocked by ISPs for reasons such as filtering spam, and frequent changes of user email addresses will also cause information to be unable to be effectively delivered and the bounce rate to increase. Information transmission barriers have become one of the main factors affecting the development of email marketing.

6. The user information is limited.

In many cases, the information registered online by users is often incomplete or untrue. There is usually only one email address. When the user's email address changes or their interests change, the original information may become invalid. Unless the user actively changes their email address, it will be difficult to track this change. If more user information can be obtained, such as company/user name, address, industry and products, etc., the marketing effect can be greatly improved.

Reference materials: /link?url=ElrTaosDveTU2AaDLx83bcTD7nKJZgvCdRiFXGqXnRnxBlR_UDd-ImpSaYJ7x3011ZTkZGI2SJ59NuMOmBkJYa Baidu Encyclopedia