Marketing Communications

506 CHAPTER 15 E-COMMUNICATION

E-mail marketing

E-mail marketing is basically not much more than using the Internet and e-mail for direct

marketing practices. Th ere are diff erent types of e-mail:^83

z Direct e-mail. Th e one ‘killer’ application that is most used by Internet users is e-mail. Just

as in traditional direct marketing, e-mail marketing can be used inbound and outbound.^84

Most of the time it is used to send a promotional off er and push the consumer into a

certain action.

z Retention e-mail. Th ese mails are sent with the purpose of strengthening the brand attitude

and experience. A popular example of retention e-mails is the e-newsletter. Th ese online

newsletters can contain ads, but the main purpose is to create an impact in the longer term

by engaging consumers with the brand. Th ey off er the reader a certain added value such

as informative content.

z Ads in e-mails of third parties. Instead of issuing a newsletter of their own, advertisers can

select newsletters of third parties and ‘buy’ some advertising or content space.

Th e net provides speed, fl exibility and low costs compared with traditional direct market-

ing media, and customisation and full individualisation are much easier and cheaper. With

these features, e-mail marketing usage has grown signifi cantly during the last fi ve years. One

of the clear reasons for this surge in volume and spending is that e-mail marketing is more

eff ective in terms of response than traditional direct mail or other web campaigns such as

banners or interstitials. Click-through rates (CTRs) of B2B e-mail newsletters range from

5% to 15%. For B2C promotional e-mail marketing campaigns this ranges from 2% to 12%.

B2C promotional e-mail marketing campaigns oft en range from about 2% to 12%. E-mail

campaigns with less than a 2% CTR may be a result of over-mailing and questionable e-mail

opt-in processes. Highly segmented and personalised e-mail lists (B2B and B2C) are oft en in

the 10% to 20% CTR range. E-mail messages with very strong content but sent to unseg-

mented lists (for instance, news or trend-type e-newsletters) oft en have CTRs in the 10% to

15% range. Trigger or behaviour-based e-mail campaigns (sent to recipients based on some

behaviour they showed, such as clicking on a product link, visiting a specifi c web page, etc.)

are oft en in the 15% to 50% range.^85

Banner CTRs are still far below 1%, and a traditional average direct marketing response

rate is 2%.^86 Moreover, it is estimated that an e-mail marketing campaign costs between 60%

and 65% less than a traditional postal direct marketing campaign by eliminating postage,

paper and printing expenses. Th is also implies that e-mail made it possible to start using

direct marketing for lower-cost items and that communicating with less frequent buyers

is now profi table.^87 E-mails reach their destination within a few seconds of sending, and

responses will also typically arrive within 48 hours of a communication. Compared with the

usual six weeks response time for a traditional direct mail campaign, this speed of delivery

and response is clearly another advantage of e-mail marketing.^88

Marketers also appreciate the easy and inexpensive way of tailoring messages to groups of

customers or even individuals. Content of e-mails and newsletters can be customised to

specifi c customer interests and needs, and running tests on small samples to refi ne messages

before fi nally mailing them to the entire target market is cheap. Research has shown that

personalisation has profound eff ects on results. Th e average CTRs can be expected to double

when messages are fully personalised. Personalisation eff ects grow over time: where impersonal

e-zines (electronic magazines sent by e-mail or e-newsletters) are still able to reach curious

people, only the personalised ones seem to be able to continue attracting the attention of

readers.^89

Measurement and tracking of e-mail marketing eff ectiveness can be carried out automat-

ically even at a detailed level. Th ere is also a link with viral marketing as it is easy for receivers

of a promotional e-mail message to pass it along to other readers simply by forwarding it

to them.

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