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Email Marketing Fequently Asked Questions

By: Valerie Lemiere - (July 11, 2003)

Summary: An effective email newsletter will engage your prospects, turn them into customers and strengthen your relationship with each reader. The following six steps explain how to develop and implement an email newsletter.

What is email marketing?
What are the advantages of email marketing over direct marketing?
What is a 'call-to-action'?
What is opt-in or permission email?
What is the difference between 'single opt-in' and 'double opt-in'?
What is SPAM?
Why should I consider email marketing?
How can I increase my email campaign results?
What is viral email marketing?

Q: What is email marketing?

A: Email marketing is an immediate and cost-effective way to communicate with customers and prospects. It allows you to target and customize your messages to your market segments, while enabling you to easily track and measure response rates. It's ideal for companies looking to increase revenue, boost sales, generate leads, build brand awareness, strengthen customer relationships and shorten sales cycles.

Q: What are the advantages of email marketing over direct marketing?

A: Email marketing allows greater personalisation and also lets you make an immediate call-to-action. This means you can actually embed a 'Buy Now' link or a 'Sign Up' link right into your message. The minute your contact receives the email, they can respond and that means faster response rates and more leads for you.

Q: What is a 'call-to-action'?

A: A call-to-action is the most important part of your marketing message because it addresses the objectives of your campaign. You openly ask recipients to take an action - Do you want to increase attendance at an upcoming seminar? Your call-to-action might be 'Register Now'. Do you want people to sign up for your newsletter? Your call-to-action might be 'Sign Up Now'.

Q: What is opt-in or permission email?

A: Permission based or opt-in email marketing means that the recipients of a message have explicitly requested emails from a company.

Q: What is the difference between "single opt-in" and "double opt-in"?

A: Single opt-in simply means that actions were taken to sign up for the email in question. Double opt-in means that the subscribers have actively confirmed their subscription, typically by responding to an automatically-generated message sent to their email address.

Q: What is SPAM?

A: SPAM is the opposite of permission-based emails. It means sending emails to contacts that have not requested any information from you or your company. A SPAM approach can be very damaging to your reputation and your brand because it is perceived as intrusive junk mail.

Q: Why should I consider email marketing?

A: Email marketing is inexpensive and effective in increasing sales, driving website traffic, and building loyalty. It is immediate. Almost 90% of email responses happen within 48 hours of the email campaign launch. It is also targeted to potential customer's exact interests.

Q: How can I increase my email campaign results?

A: Boost your response rate by sending targeted and personalised messages to each segment of your market. Call your prospects to take action, avoid spamming and keep tracking and analysing the mountain of information the campaign will generate. Use this data to customise your offers and web content.

Q: What is viral email marketing?

A: Viral marketing is "word of mouth" marketing. It encourages email recipients to spread the word about your company. A viral marketing campaign will grow from its original number of recipients. Email recipients are encouraged to pass the email on to their friends through the use of online competitions or games that users will pass on to friends with the incentive of prizes for top scores.