We’ve heard lots of advice during this recession about continuing to market hard. That’s good advice as far as it goes. But I’m afraid that when the rubber hits the road, marketing may still end up getting cut in many small businesses due to costs.
So the question becomes: how do you continue marketing your business without spending a lot of money? That’s where the beauty of email marketing comes in.
A recent ClickZ column points out the advantages of email marketing during a recession in “10 Reasons to Be Thankful for E-mail“:
“Having lived through a number of other economic downturns, e-mail offers a real bright spot on the horizon this time around. Here’s why I’m thankful for e-mail:
- Once your e-mail system is in place, the cost of broadcasting your messages is minimal. I remember during past recessions, my clients would basically shut down all their direct marketing campaigns due to the high printing and mailing expenses. With e-mail’s extremely low costs, you can continue to market to your online customers without skipping a beat.
- You can continue to test offers on the cheap. You’ve got a whole new economic reality on your hands — and you need to know how your customers will respond to it. With e-mail you can quickly test new offers and get an accurate read on your market in 24 hours or less.”
The article cites a Direct Marketing Association statistic that says you get $45.06 in return for every $1 spent on email marketing — more than double or triple the ROI of other forms of marketing.
Even more important, email requires little up-front investment. You don’t need to come up with thousands of dollars in advance for, say, printing costs and postage, as you would with direct mail pieces. So it fits even the tightest of budgets.
If your marketing team isn’t focusing on email marketing, time to point them in that direction methinks.
Email still proves to be the most economical form of direct marketing. Combine this with all the free response data you will get off the back of the campaign and you really do have yourself a bargain!
Great post. I will read your posts frequently. Added you to the RSS reader.
Companies seem to ignore the single largest online branding/advertising venue available: their own regular external emails. Why not use these emails to market the senders company?
You have a website.
You send emails.
Why not multiply your sales-staff by “wrapping” the regular email in an interactive letterhead?
No other marketing or advertising medium is as targeted as an email between people that know each other (as opposed to mass emails). These emails are always read and typically kept.
So many articles this year have yelled “email is dead” and I have consistently disagreed with that mantra.
Email is still very much alive and I’m glad to see this in your post.
Unless your target market is Gen Y or younger, email is still a good bet for communicating to and connecting with your target market.
I agree with you Denise…
Email marketing is well worth the pennies you end up paying for each one sent out. There is no other marketing out there that is a better value than email marketing. We may all begin going back to basics such as email as the economy continues to tighten.
Email is always an effective way to stay in touch with customers and clients – but in times like this, when people are cutting back – it’s probably the most affordable form of marketing to rely on out there right now. But in order to do it successfully (and not annoy your customers) you have to have some guidelines in place, too.
Email is a great tool. I am using a video email message system called Talk Fusion. Then you could add a splash of color, sound and image compared to your regular basic email with only text. You could pick templates for different occasions, use your own graphical profile and logotype, add contact information, etc.