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November 2006 - E-marketing Minute - Is Your E-Mail Marketing Being Delivered?

Is your E-Mail Marketing Being Delivered?

E-mail marketing may seem like the simplest, most cost-effective way to promote your products or services, but is it? Or is direct mail better?

Return Path, an e-mail performance management company, tracked e-mail delivery rates since 2004 and found that as much as 22 percent of subscriber-based e-mail was not sent by Internet service providers. Why?

Anti-spam filters intercept them before they are sent. If you're not reading this e-marketing minute right now, that could be why. Up to 99 percent of printed mail gets delivered. E-mail marketing alone has been shown to be not as effective as e-mail combined with print.

Mix that with an effective Web site, one that can change as often as your ideas do with little or no extra cost, and you've got it made. On your site, you can introduce new services, talk about your people, your mission, you name it.

Your Web site is the most cost-effective promotion tool you have. But make sure you don't neglect other forms of marketing. A good mix of direct mail, advertising and public relations will support each other in helping you reach your target markets.

And on everything you print and e-mail business cards, letterhead, envelopes, your signature at the end of each e-mail be sure to direct recipients to your Web site, or even better, to a specific URL on your site.