This month, we’re going to switch gears a bit and focus on one of the most powerful marketing tools available – e-mail marketing.
Why? Because e-mail marketing can achieve outstanding results quickly and it’s one of the easiest ways to reinforce awareness of your product and company.
One Eleven Interactive likes to recommend e-mail marketing in most of our programs because it’s relatively inexpensive and easy to implement. It’s also immediate, measurable and effective. According to the Direct Marketing Association:
“54% of small businesses surveyed rated e-mail as the top online promotion to drive site visitors and customers to their web sites and storefronts.”
Let’s take a look at why:
E-Mail marketing is cost-effective. Not too long ago, direct mail was considered the most effective method of marketing to a target group. But direct mail is expensive: You need to purchase a list; you need to pay for printing; and, you need to pay for postage. Once you have your list, e-mail marketing can be very affordable. Statistics show that e-mail marketing can be 20 times more cost effective than direct mail and can cost as little as fractions of a penny per e-mail.
E-Mail marketing is easy. If you’re doing e-mail marketing on your own, there are many web-based e-mail marketing products that include professional HTML templates, allow list segmentation and targeting. Most include automatic tracking and reporting. If you want to customize your campaign based on specific customer data or test your message with a segment of the list, you can do that. For a top tier pharmaceutical company, OEI recently tested a series of e-mails segmented according to practice specialties and prescription habits. The testing allowed us to refine messages and ultimately, increase response substantially.
E-Mail marketing is immediate. One of the great advantages of e-mail marketing is that you can create and send compelling promotions or announcements in hours, instead of days (or weeks in the case of direct mail). In many cases, your response will almost be immediate – often within 48 hours of hitting the ‘send’ button. At OEI, we’ve seen individuals responding to e-mails we’ve sent for our clients within minutes of sending – even in the middle of the night!
E-Mail marketing is measurable. With e-mail marketing you can measure – in detail – how many people opened your e-mails. If you have links embedded in the e-mail, you can determine Click Through Rates (CTRs). The data you get from each e-mail campaign allows you to adjust your strategies to improve future results.
E-Mail marketing is effective. With e-mail, you can communicate proactively with your customers and prospects. Once you have your list, you can segment based on source or interest, then you can e-mail as frequently as you’d like until you get the response you desire. For a top-ten pharmaceutical company, OEI recently implemented an e-mail marketing campaign designed to invite physicians to sign up for internal program. We set up a multi-month sequence of e-mails that has been getting double digit response rates, well above industry standards.
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