Frequently asked questions about email marketing. Part 1

Email marketing is probably the most controversial type of Internet advertising which brings up a lot of questions and the same number of stupid answers. It seems that most of us are at a crossroads: it looks as if we want to try and get the new target audience, but at the same time we are afraid. Of course, long hours can be spent describing the advantages of the mailing, yet I wouldn't persuade you of 'healing' properties of mailing. The proverb says: 'He that fears every bush must never go a birding'. Give it a try and you will be able to answer yourself if this solution is efficient for you or not.

I'd like to dedicate this article to other issues. Since this kind of advertising raises a lot of questions, there is plenty of wrong answers to them. First of all, there is a delusion that right on the next day after mailing, your company will receive hundreds of calls. Actually, it is not that simple. Certainly, one mailing will not have such a profound effect. Probably, the company will get some calls, but your customer base will definitely not grow an exponential rate. It is not because such type of advertising is bad or inefficient. Firstly, your offer targets certain audience (marketing specialist, CEO, supply chain manager etc.) and this single mail can be left unnoticed. Secondly, you mail can be received at the wrong time or be deleted with other offers. Thirdly, your offer may be irrelevant on one day but on the next day, the situation may change (I had clients who answered three months afterwards). As any type of advertising, email marketing has to be treated seriously. Its profitability can be measured only after three or four mailings. Also, I am frequently asked about the number of receivers in the base; databases of many companies hold hundreds of thousands of e-mail addresses. It 's hard to say what kind of databases these are, who and when created them and how often they are updated, yet the cost is certainly enormous. So in the end, clients pay the considerable amount of money, and the mailing does take place, but there is no desired result. The explanation has never been simpler: more doesn't mean better. One part of addresses from the massive database is inactive, the second one is not your target audience or probably even your competitors, and the third one is reduplication or several addresses of the same company. As a result, the emails are sent to nowhere.

To sum up, in any case, you'll get the outcome only on condition that your approach to this type of advertising is systematic and constant. You can simply try, but in such case, you shouldn't set high goals before mailing so that you won't be disappointed with the results.