New Paradigms in Email Marketing

In the early days of the World Wide Web, email marketing was embraced by the few major online retailers. An epidemic of spam, however, drove many to abandon the practice in fear of angering customers. Recently, however, email filtering has led to a tremendous reduction in the amount of spam users receive, and many companies have run successful email marketing campaigns. Here are a few ways in which email and email marketing have changed through the years.

1. Evolution of email

The origins of email go back to the late 1960s and the 1970s. While the genesis of email is debated, it has changed little since the 1980s. It was originally intended to send simple text-based messages, but nearly all email clients now support embedded HTML code and images. Today, email is far more flexible than it was in the past, and users can embed anything that one might find on a website.

2. Email marketing psychology

The earliest email marketing efforts simply informed customers of special deals. In many cases, these emails succeeded by simply reminding customers of a particular website. In addition, email marketing serves to reinforce a company’s brand in the minds of customers. With the reemergence of email marketing, companies are taking the marketing a step further with transactional emails. If done correctly, customers view these emails as a service that informs them of useful deals and information.

3. Transactional emails

A transactional email contains far more information and graphical elements than traditional email marketing messages. In them, customers can click on links to be sent to be shown deals and offers. Some transactional emails take this a step further and allow customers to pay in the email itself. By engaging customers in this manner, recipients are less likely to delay reading the email until another time forgetting about it.

4. Is it Spam?

Transactional emails are not spam, and surveys show that customers do not think of them as spam. Unlike spam, transactional emails and other types of marketing email are only sent to customers who have previously contacted the business that sends them. Further, they make it easy to opt-out. Email filtering programs recognize the difference between legitimate marketing emails and spam, and companies who use transactional emails are unlikely to have their messages blocked. It is, however, important to avoid sending too many transactional emails; even if they do not regard them as spam, customers may become annoyed if they receive too many emails from a particular company.

Author Byline:

Ken Myers as an Expert Advisor on multiple household help issues to many Organizations and groups, and is a mentor for other “Mom-preneurs” seeking guidance. He is a regular contributor of www.gonannies.com. You can get in touch with him at kmyers.ceo@gmail.com.