It is a misconception that email marketing is solely deployed to promote a company and/or its products to random people.

Email marketing can be used for:-

• Welcoming people
• Gathering more user information
• Engage with past/present/future customers
• Cross and up sell
• Maintaining customer loyalty
• Asking customers to refer their friends and family to a service or product

As an example I recently purchased a printer online from a well known company, part of the transaction involved me giving my email address. A few months later I got an email from this company asking me if I would be interested in purchasing ink cartridges for my new printer, they enclosed details of their latest offer on ink cartridges. They had obviously done their research because a few days after receiving the email my printer indicated it was low on ink! So I found the email they sent, followed the links and purchased a new set of ink cartridges as well as some more paper.

This example demonstrates how the company engaged with me, gathered information about how frequently I require new ink, cross and up sell a relative product and ensured I did not defect to a competitor when purchasing my ink cartridges.

Email newsletters and email updates are also valuable methods of retaining customer loyalty and brand awareness. Newsletters and updates can be sent, daily, weekly, monthly, or a frequency defined by the user. These newsletters and updates are also a useful tool t remain engaged with a user even once they have completed a transaction with a brand.

Another form of email marketing, known as “Triggered Email Marketing” is what one of our clients has implemented on their e-commerce platform. The basic idea is, when a customer wishes to purchase a product which is out of stock they can click a link called “Alert me when back in stock”, so that when the product is back in stock the user will receive an email alerting them about it with a direct link to complete the purchase. John Lewis also have this feature enabled on their website they have dubbed it the “£4 million button” because this feature has generated £4 million pounds worth of sales since its implementation.

Email marketing does not have to be about random people receiving random sales emails. Email marketing can be very personalized and tailored to individuals, no longer is email marketing a “one size fits all” method of direct marketing it is much more 1 to 1. Also, to generate sales an email does not necessarily have to directly promote products or services.