The phenomenon of emarketing is, of course, the age-old
practice of direct marketing/advertising remade in modern
dress. “Direct marketing” is often used
interchangeably with “direct mail.” But it can
range from the catalog that arrives along with your letters
and the advertisement inside your billing statement to the
flyer slipped under your windshield and even to the
salesman knocking at your door.
There was a time when marketing directly to customers and
potential customers was considered the poor stepchild of
more sophisticated forms of advertising, and upscale
businesses did not regard it as a viable, elegant solution
to their marketing problems.
Savvy marketers soon realized, however, that mass direct
marketing could provide immediate sales results, create a
personal connection with customers, was more cost effective
than billboard or display advertising when the object is to
get immediate results, not just to create awareness.
Perhaps most importantly, direct marketing lends itself to
greater measurability and to testing variations in form and
content to determine the best approach. Today it is
universally regarded as one of the most effective forms of
advertising.
Direct marketing can be any marketing method that takes the
initiative aims to establish or maintain an immediate,
one-to-one relationship with customers and prospective
customers, rather than waiting for them to discover you in
more general, impersonal forms of advertising.
Direct marketing is most powerful when it is used as part
of a direct response strategy – that is, asks the
recipient to take some immediate action – order a
product, get a free gift, enter a contest, give a donation.
Perhaps since the advent of the Sears catalog in 1893, the
most popular and powerful form of direct response marketing
has been via U.S. postal service.
Advent of eMarketing
But times have changed. Digital delivery is rewriting
business rules and redefining direct marketing. The advent
of electronic forms of communication such as email and the
Internet have given marketers new and even more cost
effective ways to become more focused and granular in their
marketing efforts.
The rise of the Internet produced a gold rush not only in
commerce, but in new expectations for online marketing.
Many of those expectations were inflated: not all Internet
marketing has proven to be created equal. Although
successful while still a novelty, Internet advertising
response rates are quickly eroding. Users are inundated
with banner ads everywhere they go on the Internet.
While it is true that advertising on vertically targeted
portals can produce better than average click-through
rates, banner ads can be a difficult medium to achieve
marketing goals.
Marketers looking for an effective way to reach customers
online are turning to email. Email has quickly become a
communication standard and the Internet’s most
popular application. Both the number of email users and the
usage rates are continuing to grow exponentially.
According to eMarketer, by the end of 2000, there were 96.6
million email users in the U.S. representing 43.8% of the
total population of adults and teens. In an effort to
realize the commercial potential of this powerful
communication medium, U.S. companies spent $496 million on
email advertising in 2000, a 177% increase from 1999.
Email is by far the dominant digital delivery application
and is already used much more than traditional “snail
mail”. Over 395 billion messages were delivered in
the U.S. in 1999 as compared to 202 billion pieces of mail
delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. Just one year later,
in 2001, over 536 billion email messages were delivered
– an increase of 35 percent in a single year –
versus a growth in postal deliveries of less than 3%. In
2000, some 22 percent of email messages were commercial.
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Mischelle (Schelly) Weedman-Davis has over 15 years of
marketing experience with high tech and internet businesses
such as Microsoft, Primus, Summit Software, Qpass, and
others. She recently left the high tech world behind to
focus her energy and attention on being a mother and
supporting her husband’s Seattle law firm. To learn
more about Davis Law Group visit
http://www.InjuryTrialLawyer.com or
http://www.washingtonaccidentbook.com .
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