An email marketing campaign involves two main tasks – first, you must collect addresses from willing consumers and, second, you must create marketing material that these consumers will want to read. Before you undertake a campaign of your own, however, it is important that you are aware of the pros and cons of making such a decision.
Pros
There are a number of advantages associated with email marketing campaigns, which is why they are becoming so popular today.
- It's fast – Marketing in this way is much faster than doing so via regular mail, which takes at least 2 days to arrive in most cases. An email, on the other hand, will reach the recipient in a few seconds. It is also possible to send out mass messages in only a few short minutes.
- It's cheap – Sending out a heap of letters proves to be quite expensive, as you have to purchase the envelopes, paper and stamps. Emails, on the other hand, are very cheap. You can even contact people in overseas without it costing you an arm and a leg.
Cons
There are also a number of disadvantages associated with these campaigns, so you should think twice before using one in your own business.
- It's easy to ignore – Unfortunately, one of the biggest problems with these campaigns are that recipients can easily ignore your message with the click of a button. Your email might even be mistaken for spam and reported to their host, blocking further correspondence.
- It's time consuming – This does not refer to the sending of the message, it actually refers to the campaign as a whole. Remember that it will take time to attract consumer's email addresses and that you will need a team to actually develop the message to be sent.
As you can see, there are a number of advantages and disadvantages associated with email marketing campaigns as we know them today. Make sure that you are aware of all these points before making a final decision on whether this is a marketing technique that you would like to use or not, as it might be too late to back out once you've started.
