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Email marketing, if done correctly, is a great way to reach new audiences and potential customers online. But like any marketing campaign, understanding the pros and cons of email marketing can mean the difference between successful and failed campaigns. Below are the good and bad sides of email marketing.
Pros:
Brand awareness – Consistent email marketing helps consumers remember who your brand is. This can result in consumers sharing your material if they think it’s good, which further promotes your brand, and it helps people to recall your brand when they are ready to make a buying decision.
Easily share information and advertise – Email marketing allows you to share content that demonstrates your knowledge and expertise in your specific industry or field, but it also gives you the opportunity to promote a new product, service or limited time special offer.
Open, targeted dialogue – Email marketing creates the opportunity to build conversations around topics consumers are interested in. Because opt in/out services are available in email campaigns, people who are genuinely interested in your products will receive your emails and you’re able to build targeted campaigns around this group.
Fast to produce – Email marketing campaigns don’t require the hours of design and printing time direct mail campaigns can take with the variety of free or low cost email design service sites out there.
Cons:
Difficult getting attention – It’s very much possible that your marketing email may never be opened by consumers. Bulk emailing programs are unpredictable because your marketing email could be seen as unimportant and be deleted or caught in the spam folder and never be seen by consumers.
Bad reputation – Unsolicited emails can leave a bad taste in a consumer’s mouth and make a person consider your company less than reputable. If everyone on your list hasn’t opted in or if unsubscriber requests aren’t taken care of immediately, your company’s image can be tarnished.
Relevance – Sending relevant information to a large group of people is difficult to accomplish. Consumers want quality information that is pertinent to them. If there isn’t a clear and appropriate call to action based on your targeted group, they’ll move on to the next email.
Content planning requires time and thought – From the body content and call to action to even the email’s subject line that gets people to click on the email, creating quality content that consumers are interested in is very time consuming.
So there you have it. Like any marketing campaign, there are pros and cons to email marketing that should be considered before planning an advertising strategy. But if you do it right, email marketing can be very effective.