The growth in demand for email marketing continues to be a key
trend in the market. We estimate that UK
businesses spent £178m on
email marketing during 2006 – an increase of 20% over 2005.
Companies can derive many benefits from an investment in email marketing. Let’s take a look at a few…
Customer acquisition
Even if they don’t
buy anything, capturing the email address of a visitor to your site –
or, if you don’t have one, your shop - gives you a second chance to
persuade them to return and buy something.
Online retailers
lose many consumers that abandon purchases at checkouts, for example –
and unless you have their address, they will be lost.
Customer loyalty
Acquiring
new customers is more expensive than retaining your existing ones.
Email is a great way to inform your customers about new offers and
products – something you can’t do in detail except when they are
visiting your website – as well as to cross-sell and up-sell.
All
of that helps you increase the lifetime value of your customers and
reduce churn. Use email to build relationships with your customers.
Brand awareness and credibility
Integrating
your messaging and creative into email campaigns will allow you to
provide a more holistic customer experience, enhance perceptions of
your company and improve recall.
Entertaining and informative
campaigns can also help you build relationships by engaging users more
effectively. Through email marketing, there is also an opportunity to
exploit rich media to engage more effectively with customers.
Efficiency and automation
Email
is a cost effective and speedy marketing channel. Integration with web
analytics software can also help you plan campaigns more effectively
and tailor campaigns to individual consumers. It is relatively
straightforward to set up automated, trigger-based emails, to reduce
the burden on resources.
Customer service
Feedback
emails offer a chance for your customers to comment on your online
performance. Analysing the data from email campaigns can also provide
clues as to their requirements. Again, you can use automated email here.
