Email Marketing
What is Email
Marketing?
Email Marketing is a form of direct marketing where you promote a product or service by directly emailing a target group of customers.
Direct Email
Campaigns
Direct email campaigns
can be effective as they provide information on
offers, specials, news or information based on a specific niche or
interest to a group of individuals that have elected to receive such
emails via subscribing to an 'opt-in' list (most effective) or a
purchased email list (not always verified).
Targeted Mail Lists
Target mail
lists are a little different as they tend to be purchased by the
thousands from email list providers. While the number of emails
provided is large, the spread of interest tends also to be large and
will not be as tightly focussed as your own list, and thus the
successrate is likely to be lower.
Opt-In lists
An Opt-in list is a
list of people that have subscribed to receive information on a
certain topic that they have subscribed to or 'opted-in' to receive.
These types of lists are far more effective than general email lists
as the people genuinely want to receive the information from you.
You can build these lists on your own by placing link on your
website where people can sign up for a newsletter, offers of
specials or market updates. This method of email
marketing is not illegal if done within established rules and
should be part of your regular marketing process.
Rules for opt-in lists
In 2003
Congress passed the Can-Spam Act that went into law in 2004. This
Act lays out the following main rules:
- False or misleading header information. Your
email's "From," "To," and routing information as including the
originating domain name and email address must be accurate and
identify the person who initiated the email.
- Prohibition of deceptive subject lines. The
subject line cannot mislead the recipient about the contents or
subject matter of the message.
- Your email gives recipients an opt-out
method. You must provide a return email address or
another Internet-based response mechanism that allows a recipient
to ask you not to send future email messages to that email
address, and you must honor the requests. You may create a "menu"
of choices to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of
messages, but you must include the option to end any commercial
messages from the sender.
- A warning label if the email contains adult
content.
- All commercial email be identified as an
advertisement and include
the senders valid physical postal address. Your message must contain clear and conspicuous notice that the message is an advertisement or solicitation and that the recipient can opt out of receiving more commercial email from you. It also must include your valid physical postal address.