It may seem obvious that each business has a customer database – a list of present and past customers or of interested people who left their details, to whom you can send email marketing messages. Business owners have already learned to value the importance of keeping in touch with their customers. However, the benefits of using mailing lists and the frequency of sending email marketing messages are sometimes underestimated.
A business’s income depends on customers.
Those who joined your mailing list. are customers who showed the highest level of responsiveness to your brand or service (purchased it or researched it). However, some businesses don’t realize the full potential of their email marketing mailing lists. This can include businesses whose owners or marketers are waiting for a significant sale or an important update to justify an email marketing campaign when in fact maintaining continuous contact regardless to special offers is the key for an ongoing success of the business.
Directing marketing efforts (and budget) towards brand new customers who haven’t yet heard of the brand may seem reasonable. After all, the customers in the mailing list are already “bought” and others may not be. However, the opposite is true – sure it’s important that customers know of your brand’s existence, but it’s even more important that they purchase the product and recommend it to others.
If your mailing list is “dormant”, if you don’t contact your customers regularly in order to offer benefits or even a professional tip; then you’re missing the greatest advantage of managing mailing lists and email marketing campaigns – keeping the business at the forefront of the customer’s awareness and generating repurchases!
Where is the mailing list located on the ROI axis?
ATL Advertising – traditional media
Exposure: television, newspapers, radio and billboards.
Cost: as a rule advertising in these media is very expensive.
Benefit: the advertisement will be exposed to the general public (and not directed to a specific segmented target audience).
BTL Advertising – internet; outdoor; direct marketing etc.
Exposure: an internet banner, a viral video, a sponsored advertisement, email marketing.
Cost: usually cheaper than traditional media.
Benefit: the message can be directed to specific audience segments according to the type of websites where the ad is displayed (each website usually directs at a specific target audience)
Out of all elements in the internet media, email marketing is the most cost effective
Exposure: delivering an email marketing message into the personal inbox or a text message to the mobile phone of every potential customer.
Cost: delivering information packages via an email marketing system offer highly attractive prices which are much lower than those of the traditional media as well as other internet media elements.
Benefit: Selecting specific target audiences such as past customers or interested customers only. Updating the list’s relevance according to the recipient’s statistics: how many recipients have opened/read/clicked a link and who they are?
Advertising via an email marketing system makes it possible to reach a large range of relevant customers (those whose interests are relevant to your brand or those who are already familiar with the brand), at the lowest price (the price of a monthly email marketing package).
