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Email has become one of the most popular channels of marketing in the world. Advertisers are attracted to email marketing because it provides them to communicate directly with users and it is way cheaper and faster compared to direct mail advertising. In order to save money, more and more businesses are resorting to email marketing because it has the ability to acquire customers and maintain relationships with them.

According to GartnerG2, a research service from Gartner Inc., consumers will be more yielding in accepting mail containing advertisements as they get increasingly adept in using email, building trust and familiarity with advertisers. The company’s projection for advertising revenue for 2005 totals to about $1.5 billion.

One of the numerous advantages of email marketing is that within days of its establishment, results can already be seen and necessary actions can already be decided upon. The entire cycle of an email campaign is indeed very much shorter than direct mail marketing campaigns.

Advertisers can utilize email strategies that are personalized and combine or align them with their traditional mail marketing plans in order for them to realize campaign goals. Permission email marketing, or opt-in email marketing is a way of advertising where the recipient of an email containing an advertisement has given permission to receive it. It is an effective method, since in theory, the person who is about to receive the email is anticipating the advertisement, and therefore, he or she will not simply delete it and will take the time to read the ad.

There are several challenges faced by email marketing in the present. More and more people are getting victimized by spamming. To offset this problem, the use of filtering and blocking software has proliferated immensely. If this goes on, the use of protective programs can be a standard in the future.

With the rate that the situation is going, the strategies that will be used in email marketing in the near future will be concentrated on making it entirely safe and legal. 

GartnerG2 recommends the following measures for advertisers to maximize their campaigns:

1. Advanced personalization should be utilized to communicate with customers
2. Permit present and prospective customers to give feedback. Make sure to acknowledge and utilize them
3. Send no more than two emails per customer, three for business audiences
4. Use email addresses that are collected only through opt-in means when sending emails

Other strategies should be implemented by advertisers to gear up for the future:

1. Details should be provided for the lists
When subscription links are accessed, they lead into a page where users can see details on the kind of communication they will receive from advertisers. Instructions on what to do with the information should also be included.

2. Use double-opt in subscriptions
Double opt-ins protect people who did not sign-up to a particular kind of subscriptions by alerting them if someone tries to send them unsolicited email

3. Install security for mailing lists
At least, lists should be password-protected. If possible, store lists somewhere that is not connected to the network. This will reduce the risk of getting hackers and viruses in the lists.

4. Avoid co-registrations
A lot of marketers are making use of co-registration to boost up their lists, but what they do not know is that it is a very dangerous endeavor. Co-registrations offer users with forms from different web sites that offer to provide communications through email coming from various merchants that are related to different fields of interest. What users don not know is that co-registering increases the chances of getting spam mail with the ones that they are actually supposed to receive. 

5. Avoid using red flag words
words like discount, free, special, bonus, are often used by marketers for their mails. Mail containing too many of these words can put an advertiser’s message to spam folders. Advertisers can test if their mail can get past the spam filters by creating an account in Yahoo, for instance, then try sending mail to an intended address, and check which folder they will end up.  

It requires a little more effort for these strategies to implement, but it will surely be worth it in the end. Advertisers need only to select the strategy that is most appropriate for their businesses, and it will definitely bring immense improvement to their database of mailing lists.

Marketing through email is a very effective method to communicate with your customers. Generally it is very economical, and if properly done, can help create brand identification and dependability.
 
At an average of just a few centavos cost per message, it is definitely a great bargain in contrast to traditional “direct mail”. Furthermore, email marketing has a strong response rate which ranges from 5-35 percent depending on industry type and format.

One advantage of marketing email is the amount of information that clients supply when registering for your subscription email.  By learning who your clients really are, including their gender, age, income and specially their special interests, you can target your services and products to accommodate their needs.

Advantages of email marketing:

1.  Brings in interested audiences.  Your offer can reach prospect clients that already have conveyed interest to your topic.

2.  Cost effective.  Compared to all other methods of direct marketing, significantly, email marketing is much less expensive.

3.  Fast and effective.  Conventional direct marketing methods, like direct mail, take up a lot time to make and execute. Then, you still have to wait for another few months to evaluate the results so to verify success. In permission or
“opt-in” email marketing, promotions can be implemented in just days with outcome traceable in actual time, providing you with instant and direct feedback as your campaign or promotion is in its development stage.

4.  Responses are high.  Generally, permission or “opt-in” email campaigns brings about higher response rates compared traditional direct ad promotion or even other kinds of online promotion or advertising.

Not like a website, wherein an internet user has to memorize the web address as well as remember and visit, an email ezine or newsletter regularly appears at certain intervals with no effort from your client. Over a certain period, it strengthens your perceived capability, educates your recipients regarding their demand for your products and services, then makes you their choice of provider when your recipients finally decides that it is time to employ someone.

Downloadable pieces such as ebooks are accessible instantly. For instance, when you are offering prospect clients an ebook with helpful information, by just visiting your website, click on your “landing page” and fill up details and in just minutes, your ebook is downloaded.

5.  Email can perform tasks automatically.  Autoresponders are practical and inexpensive and can be set on “auto pilot” to send specific information and reports to your recipients through email.

Autoresponders send emails automatically back to whomever that sent you email regarding information on the products or services that you offer.

Now your prospects obtain the information that they are asking regarding your business, your services and products for twenty-four hours everyday and yes, seven days in a week, without any individual to “follow-up” on each lead.

Disadvantages of email marketing:

1.  Today, with the arrival of spam, email can be a poor environment to deal with.  This means that prospects are mainly searching their email for particular messages from friends, family and colleagues then, all else is banned.  However thanks to anti-spam programs and email servers that filters spam messages into the bulk folder.  Take into consideration though, that some of emails can possibly be filtered to the spam folder when not permitted by the recipient.

2.  Email messages need to be short. Prospects want quick and to the point information. Therefore a lengthy copy is definitely out. Complicated offers certainly are out. So are supporting arguments and facts. 

3.  Emails restrain your creativity. All text is quite boring and with email massages, text is the most essential part.  You can not even create creative messages as your recipients demand straight to the point advertisements or reports.

Several small online businesses presume that the web has very little worth to them since they believe that their services or products cannot be sold easily online. However they are yet to discover the power of cost-effective information processing as well as electronic media or “email” can benefit most small online businesses supply faster and better communication and customer service.

Anybody can promote their website, advertise their products and get their ideas out simply using by the “Email” as the channel of delivering and making their message known to the world.