Email Marketing - How Best To Manage and Distribute Your Messages

by: Nandang S Nugraha | Total views: 43 | Word Count: 681 | View PDF | Print View

 by: Karen Fegarty

This holiday season 15 percent of consumers in the US
plan to buy online, spending an average of $585. That’s 9 percent more
revenue for online merchants in comparison to last year’s results.

A recent report estimates that Canadians will spend half
a billion dollars online for gifts this holiday season. Even by
conservative estimates the total number predicted is double the $282
million predicted for Christmas, 1999.

Whatever way you look at it - doing business over the
net is growing at incredible rates and email marketing is becoming a
‘given’ element of many marketing campaigns. It should come as no
surprise that tools to help us manage our email lists and distribution
are becoming increasingly important.

The challenge in incorporating email marketing into a
campaign is determining what type of email service best suits your
business needs, today and in the long-term.

There are two main choices when establishing and
maintaining email marketing programs: A desktop email marketing
application or an email campaign submission service.

Let me describe the two options in greater detail -

Email Marketing Application- Tools such as these allow
you to create, manage and distribute your own customized email
campaigns. Cost is usually a one-time software purchase. This approach
is best suited to those companies with a fairly well defined target
market and corresponding email distribution list. This approach can
also be used if your target audience is growing and/or change. The
software applications available allow the user to build, maintain and
change their own email distribution lists, create rich messages and
distribute your campaigns.

I would recommend this type of product to those
businesses with a pre-identified target audience and an ability to
access a distribution list to reach this audience. With a desktop
application your original investment provides you with the flexibility
to manage and define your own e-mail distribution lists - this is the
type of service for you if you’re interested in owning and maintaining
your own list and using this list as part of the intellectual property
of your business.

Campaign Submission Service - When you use this type of
service you are contracting a third-party to provide you with the
interface to your customers and/or target audience. The agent will
distribute your message to one or several opt-in e-mail lists that have
been provided based upon some stated interest on the part of the
recipients. These are lists of people who have registered for certain
websites, e-zines or newsletters or have asked to receive information
via e-mail and have stated their interested in certain subjects.

The agent or submission service will work with you to
determine the list that best matches your product, service or
announcement - working together you will use pre-existing lists to
create a target email audience for your company’s use. The submission
service will receive your message and distribute to one or more of the
email lists - the quality control element in place is that you are
sending relevant information to recipients that have already stated an
interest in a related subject matter and most likely the message will
not be viewed as SPAM. Cost usually runs on an 8 to 30 cent per email
sent charge.

The submission service allows you to work with experts
in the field of gathering e-mail distribution lists based on subject(s)
interest and the application of this technology in receiving
information. Each time you want to distribute a message you rely on
these service providers for their advice, lists and expertise in
distributing your information. If you’re new to the e-mail marketing
forum and your business does not yet have a substantial e-mail
distribution list - this service may be able to fill the gap and get
you into the game.

A couple of items to keep in mind - the overall cost of
your e-mail marketing efforts, campaign tracking reports and the future
role of email marketing in your overall direct marketing plans.

There are plenty of choices in the marketplace - educate yourself and make the best decision for your organization.

About the Author

Karen Fegarty is with MailWorkZ. MailWorkZ has been instrumental in developing new email technology. MailWorkZ's award winning email marketing tool, is key to reaching your customers in a highly efficient, personalized manner. Reach Karen at karen@mailworkz.com

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