Advantages and disadvantages of email marketing

Email marketing has become a vital part of the internet marketer’s toolbox. However there are numerous advantages and disadvantages to this type of marketing that are often overlooked. Over the last number of years email marketing has become increasingly common among small niche business owners. This is because it allows them to contact their scattered network of customers. If you are considering adapting this method for your own business you’ll be sure to find hundreds of websites encouraging you to invest in this marketing tool. But before you splash out your money look at this list of advantages and disadvantages of email marketing and try to think if it is the correct tool for your business model. In my opinion what works for some businesses may not work for others. Therefore it is important to consider the good and bad before you go ahead and buy.

1)Its low cost: Marketing in general can be expensive paying for adverts in Magazines or newspaper is a pricey business and you are never sure if you will get a return on your investment and if you have you will rarely find out that they choose your company because of that advert. Email marketing eliminates this.

2) Its personalizable: Your emails will address each and every person you write to. This helps you develop a relationship with the perspective buyer. Although a lot of people are now aware that these greetings are automated they still enjoy it. Also some programs allow you to send emails with only the products specified as been of interest to the buyer.

3) Its fast: Email marketing is fast. You get your message to the potential customer’s inbox within a few minutes and nowadays most people check their emails at least once a day. This means you can see fast results from your effort.

4) Its measurable: Tools are available that allow checking click through rates. This means you can measure how many people used your email to click to your website and buy your product. There will be no doubts at the end of the campaign as the whether it was successful or not.

5) There are no geographical boundaries to your campaign: Many campaigns are limited by Geographical limitations, email marketing doesn’t have this problem. It can reach anywhere in the world that has an Internet connection.

1) Delivery problems: A lot of email providers have firewalls up against emails which they deem as been undesirable, this means that a lot of your emails may be sent directly to the junk mailbox. Which is often like it was never sent at all.

2) Change in customers tastes: Customers may often opt in to these emails on a whim but may soon be bored or no longer interested in the topic yet they still receive the emails. This means your emails are now been sent to someone who is no longer interested in the topic.

3) Oversaturated?? : It is argued by some experts that email marketing is over saturated and that consumers are no longer responsive to marketing emails. A lot of people(me included )receive a lot of emails a day and usually the emails offering the latest products are the last to be read.

4)Virus and worms : With viruses and worms become ever more common in the internet world people are becoming slower to open their emails this means trust has been lost for the unknown email sender and it is continuing to be lost.

5) Costs: All the cost of email marketing is low it still requires some expertise and if you want graphics to accompany it then it will require more. The software used make some time to get used to and if you want the extras you can either study photo shop or outsource. One will cost you time the other will cost you money!!