BULK EMAIL
Don’t confuse bulk email with spam – unsolicited emails, sent without prior request or permission is known as spam and rarely yields any benefit. On the other hand, bulk emailing, especially when it is directed and targeted to a specific audience is an excellent and very effective marketing tool that can give you a competitive edge and has numerous other benefits. By building marketing campaigns based on mailing lists that are prequalified and segmented produces honed results and a much higher take up rate.
LIST BUILDING
One of the most used features of bulk emailing is list building. Building your mailing lists based on pre-qualification, for example, giving visitors to your website an option to opt in, via a form or survey leads to creating a relationship with your potential customers and builds trust. Emails sent to those that have agreed to receive them are much more likely to open and read your email. Building comprehensive lists does take time, but is well worth the time and effort.
SEGMENTATION
The objective of segmenting your email list is to increase the relevancy of your messages to the individual. Thus, the more information you are able to build into your list regarding your website visitors and customers gives you greater marketing flexibility and allows you to be much more specific in your marketing campaigns. For example if you’ve recently done a survey then you will know the different interests and the variations, such as product preference, geographics and demographics all which can be used to help you classify interest and future bulk email marketing can be tailored to a specific criteria and what you believe will be of specific interest to that range of individuals. For example email all your best customers with exclusive promotions, or email existing customers and prospective customers with information regarding a specific product group which they have shown interest in or perhaps having previously purchased from.
REPORTING AND TESTING
Unlike outdated and old fashioned direct mail, you don’t have to wait weeks to gauge a response to a bulk email marketing campaign. By being able to quickly and easily analyse what reactions and results you are creating via your bulk mails, enables you to establish all sorts of interesting and valuable information such as;
· delivery rates
· who opened your email
· who forwarded your email
· what they clicked on your email
· where they went on your site
· who clicked through to your site
· who forwarded your email
· how many of your emails were posted to social network sites
· who has unsubscribed
With this sort of information you can statistically test what creates the most interest, what phrases prompted curiosity, how many prospects have been converted to customers and hone your future marketing to an even more qualified audience.
The use of bulk emailing software and all it’s associated tools and reporting facilities really can reap substantial benefits and is widely acknowledged as an exceptional return on investment.
