E-mail marketing is a form of direct marketing that uses e-mail as the delivery medium for communicating a marketing message to a group of people. E-mail marketing is used to communicate with existing customer contacts as well as to market to potential customers in prospect lists purchased from external sources. E-mail marketing can be used to help enhance the relationship of a business with its existing customers as well as to reach out to acquire new customers. Specifically e-mail marketing can be used to support customer loyalty and encourage repeat business with existing customers, as well as to deliver information and offer promotions to both existing customers and prospects via newsletters and other forms of communication.
Here are the various forms of Email Marketing which are being practiced in the present day scenario:
Promotional E-mails
The main focus of promotional e-mails is to deliver offers or invitations or to promote products or services that are relevant to a subscriber’s preference settings to result in a sale or some other predetermined action. E-mails that are promotional in nature are the most marketing focused. It is important to make sure the e-mail is relevant to recipients and well-crafted to ensure that they will want to continue to receive and pay attention to such e-mails.
Confirmation E-mails
Confirmation e-mails are sent to customers confirming the receipt of a customer request. Some common types of confirmation e-mails may include subscription confirmations, e-mail address verification, login details, auto-responses to customer e-mails, updates to subscription preferences, unsubscribe requests, and so on.
Informational E-mails
Informational e-mails are sent to educate subscribers on topics relative to their preference settings with the provider. This type of e-mail is often in the form of a newsletter. For example, a travel guide publisher may send an e-mail about the latest events in a particular place or interesting places around the globe.
Lifecycle E-mails
Lifecycle e-mails are sent to customers to support acquisition, conversion, growth, retention, and reactivation of subscribers. When an online retail company sends e-mails to customers about pending orders in the cart, it supports the earliest stage of the customer lifecycle, which is the conversion of prospects to buyers. E-mails that are greeting customers on their birthdays, for example, support the retention stage of the customer lifecycle.
Transactional E-mails
Transactional e-mails are usually trigger-based e-mails that are sent based on a customer’s action with a company, often to acknowledge that a business deal has been completed. Purchase receipts are the most common type of transactional message. As these e-mails are usually opened and read by the customer, transactional e-mails provide an opportunity to cross-sell or up-sell by including promotional messages within the body of transactional e-mails.
E-mail marketing can have many different styles or levels of personalization, but any e-mail sent to existing or prospective customers can be regarded as e-mail marketing. E-mail marketing has proven to be one of the most effective digital marketing channels. When well executed, e-mail marketing can benefit many types of businesses for many different purposes.
For more interesting articles log on to www.smstudy.com/articles
