Permission-Based Email Marketing

You now have a database of names of “like-minded” individuals.
They’ve given you permission to stay in touch with them, so do that
via email. This would be like the program above where you send out
emails at a ratio of three informational messages to one info-mational
message. And you would regularly irregularly feed them into the
funnel of your web site. See the last section in this chapter.
Let's briefly review the three types of email marketing:
1. Direct email: Direct email involves sending a promotional message
in the form of an email. It might be an announcement of a special
offer, for example.
2. Retention email: Instead of promotional email designed only to
encourage the recipient to take action (buy something, sign-up for
something, etc.), you might send out retention emails. These usually
take the form of regular emails known as newsletters. A newsletter
may carry promotional messages or advertisements, but will aim at
developing a long-term impact on the readers. It should provide the
readers with value, which means more than just sales messages. It
should contain information that informs, entertains or otherwise
benefits the readers.
3. Advertising in other people's emails: Instead of producing your own
newsletter, you can find newsletters published by others and pay them
to put your advertisement in the emails they send their subscribers.
Indeed, there are many email newsletters that are created for just this
purpose - to sell advertising space to others. As people tire of getting
sales messages via email, it's these quality communications that
perhaps hold the most potential for the future.
According to a 2001 study by New Century Communications and
AdRelevance, the average costs per message were as follows:
• Permission-based direct email: $0.20
• Telemarketing: $1.00 to $3.00
• Direct mail: $0.75 to $2.00
As you can see, permission-based direct email beats all other directmarketing
vehicles hands down because there are no production,
paper, or postage costs.
InternetVIZ reported in 2002 that email marketing response rates
outpace direct mail ten to one. DoubleClick found in its 2002 survey
that more than 88% of online consumers have made a purchase as a
result of receiving email that they have requested. And, according to
the Association for Interactive Marketing, 64% of surveyed marketers
say that revenue has increased directly from transactions resulting
from email usage.
Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) wanted to fill up some available seats
during off-peak days during the holidays and had a great idea. For a
special low fare of $149, SAS was offering a deal: fly out of the United
States on a red eye, land in Copenhagen the next morning. Shop all
day and board the plan that night. You snooze on the plane and wake
up refreshed. They even gave a free shower voucher to use in the
airport.
So, how did they get the word out without spending a fortune, which
would in essence nullify the inexpensive package? Simply put: email
based marketing. Or, better yet, viral marketing. Which is exactly
what happened. For instance, after a friend received the offer in the
email, she ran around telling all her friends about it and forwarded
that email to about sixty people! When the email based marketing
piece launched to SAS's registered user database, along with a link to
the online offer and ticket purchase available online, reservations
started coming in 9 minutes later and the flight packages sold out less
than 2 days later.