Is email marketing still effective?

[vash]

Email marketing still works and it is still used by many successful companies.

Once in a while, I get some newsletter from the online vendors which I have bought things from in the past. They often send me coupons and notifications of some sales events. I actually look at them quite often although I don't buy often.

Yes, like some people said... most of the emails will be deleted without even reading. People might look at it if they actually signed up to the newsletter themselves. In order to have that happen, I believe you need good reputation in order to make it successful.

 

[sb123]

You should collect your elist members in a genuine way, with double opt-in type lists, and by giving them a link to opt out of your list, along with other features like your address, etc., you can benefit from email marketing. If you are able to collect majority of your email addresses through focused and targeted marketing strategies, then those members can buy a lot of things that you promote through your email campaigns.

 

[SimplySidy]

Email Marketing in today's world can be quite a disaster for any Freelance or Organization unless of course, the emails are sent out to those who opted for them. Two of my clients' websites had been suspended due to reports of excessive spam emails (from some website called SpamCop). In today's world, email marketing to non-subscribers is considered as Spam and many report this to different organizations on the Internet. So be watchful if you intend to send out bulk emails to non-subscribers

 

[ozadin]

I would say it has been very effective so far. So many people are setting up opt-ins, squeeze pages, and trying to experiment which page will work and convert for them. People are signing up for their newsletters, and you can easily take advantage of that. Not to mention, you can send all your opt-ins a simple e-mail that advertises your affiliate link or product in bulk which saves a lot of time. I would say it's completely passive after getting a dedicated e-mail list, however it's really hard nowadays since most of them are scams.

 

[mkcookin]

Email marketing is still the number one way people communicate with their subscribers and people. Also people checking their inbox, is the number 1 activity online. This is even more popular then people checking Facebook.

So I would easily say, that email marketing is not going anywhere. It is still very effective. If yo have people that know like, and trust you, then it is probably one of the best ways to make solid income every month.

 

[rage35]

Is email marketing still effective today? I don't think it is because most emails get trashed or ignored if they are not important to the reader because of the mass amount of spam emails being received on a daily basis.

Email marketing effectiveness nowadays isn't that effective compared before. Usually, emails of no value for readers will get deleted or some will just be filtered as spam so your target doesn't seem to follow if you are using email marketing.

 

[mikong]

The trend is on social media, it is obviously one of the most visited sites in the world wide web. So to answer your question, No. I think advertising using E-mil is no longer effective as, some if not all, would only see it as a spam. In this modern era, people only use E-mail as an avenue for something less important and perhaps some business transactions and for formality sake.

 

[blackdata]

Yes, it is still very effective if you have a good list and your sales pitch is actually interesting. You have to interest the reader, else you'll get nothing out of it.

 

[OniBlackMage]

I know in the small business networks, e-blasts are still used and to some better effect. A lot of time we want to hear cutting edge information or products for sales, since we live everyday on staying current and taking advantage of everything that comes our way. Keep in mind though, we get and send these e-blasts to people whom we have actually called and established contact with before. Even though its hundreds of people. I think that personal touch makes all the difference. Most people will trash an email from a stranger since in the business sphere its just too risky to take a chance on someone you don't know.

My advice to make emails work: Talk to someone first and add that personal touch!

 

[Yorozuya]

E-mail marketing is one of the best ways to reach your audience. All you have to do is place an opt-in box on your site and give your audience a reason to sign up. I usually give them a free e-book I wrote in exchange for signing up. It doesn't has to be long, but it has to be useful and interesting so people will sign up to your newsletter.
I personally use Mailchimp to manage my e-mail lists because its free to use when your list is still growing. They have good inbox rate and nice user interface. Aweber is widely considered to be the best mailer out there, but they are just too damn expensive for me.

 

[sardonicone]

If anything it's beginning to make a comeback due to many bowing out of that game. The idea though is to personally compile the lists yourself rather than just buying a list and taking a crack at them blind. If you let people sign up
on their own via your own site/blog - they're going to be more inclined to listen to what you have to say.

 

[TheDerpMan]

i don't know why people use email spam...
no one notice emails, just waste of time.

Even though email isn't as common as it used to be, it still can be quite valuable. As someone who doesn't really enjoy using social media (e.g personal accounts), email is still quite useful for me. Still, most people don't use email as much, and most people prefer social media such as Facebook or twitter for updates.

 

[Cammie27]

I think it is still effective if managed properly, but it isn't easy to be present without being spammy. "Smart" spam filters mean that if your mailings are going out more often than your customers/subscribers are willing to open them you'll eventually end up in the spam folder. Appropriate frequency, catchy but not suspicious subject lines, and content that actually makes the reader want to open your messages are essential.

 

[BigJ]

Building your own (opted-in) list should always be a conscious thought because it is targeted traffic.

Even then, email marketing will vary depending on the product/service offered. I just ran what I considered a small, unsuccessful campaign where I sent just under 900 targeted emails and only received about 50 clicks and 5 conversions. I believe that the poor conversion was due to a combination of the service offered (low value) and my copy write. You live and learn though.

 

[MercyL]

Is email marketing still effective today? I don't think it is because most emails get trashed or ignored if they are not important to the reader because of the mass amount of spam emails being received on a daily basis.

Email marketing can be successful, but the copy must be extremely "clean", meaning you must offer something beyond hype in each campaign.

Email marketing letters cannot simply say "come to my site and get rich", or "we've got something for you, click here". There must be news about your site or product line, or articles with topics your niche market find useful.

And...
forget about those awful squeeze pages. People see those coming a mile away and I have friends who immediately close a squeeze page as soon as it loads. Don't use your email marketing to send people to a squeeze page, send them to your site or to the page showing the product discussed in the email.

 

[Raivyn]

As stated above, if managed properly, it could be a very effective tool.

 

[smoothmarketer]

In many ways it is still very effective. However you need to remember that Google has changed its email features and now most ads on gmail will be appearing like regular marketing emails. This may put many people off and marketing emails may become trashed as spam.

 

[Trista]

Yes, I agree about Gmail, it may make email marketing more of a challenge.

Fortunately it is possible to disable the new feature. I didn't know this until I read the email of a very savvy marketer who gave out the instructions for doing so.

You just click the plus (+) sign on the right side of the tab marked "promotions." Then you uncheck promotions and click "save" and the tabbed feature is disabled.

I was quite glad for the mini-tutorial on this!

 

[vash]

Well like I said, most successful email marketing is to repeat customers.
If you have bought things in the past from Amazon for example, you'd often receive newsletters from Amazon. They actually follow your browsing behavior. If you have looked at a digital camera on their site, it won't be long before they send you an email about hot deals on digital cameras. I believe it is actually effective as a reminder of interest.

It will be harder to get someone to buy from you for the first time if they haven't bought anything from you in the past. So basically I am still with my previous point, email marketing works best on existing customers.

 

[atomic76]

I'm not entirely convinced at how effective it is these days. At the very least, it's much harder to reach the consumer via emails due to all the laws and restrictions and spam blocking methodologies. I think in many cases, businesses are kind of tricking people into inadvertently signing up for their email list any way they can. It's more or less covering their behinds so they can simply say that you "opted in" to it.