email marketing is still alive

In spite of spam and the advancement in approaches to distribute marketing information over the internet, email still remains an effective marketing tool.  Marketers have embraced Blogs, RSS, SEO and PPC as online marking tools, but email marketing has improved with the use of email safelists and opt-in email lists.

Reference:

"Do email advertising safe lists work anymore?" | by David Callan

http://www.akamarketing.com/email-advertising-safe-lists.php

In recent years there has been growing controversy over email and especially email delivery. Spam or unsolicited emails have become a very major issue. Many ISP services in their noble attempt to fight this menace have erected such powerful filters that they often keep out email that we want to receive.

This has led many online entrepreneurs to the conclusion that any promotional effort or online marketing campaign that involves email is automatically a non-starter. Actually despite all the problems and challenges that email has faced in recent years, nothing could be further from the truth.

Even as you read this, there are online publishing enterprises that have ignored SEO and PPC (pay-per-click) methods of generating traffic to their sites and have instead put all their focus on only email safelists or opt-in email lists. One company in particular that was heavily involved in direct marketing methods in its’ offline days is now approaching the staggering annual turnover of $100 million. And the only promotional method that they know, understand and use has to do with email.

Will RSS Feeds Replace Email Marketing?

The truth of the matter is that despite what folks have been saying about RSS (Really simple syndication) feeds replacing email the facts on the ground are that there is really no replacement in site for email.

There has been a lot of excitement about RSS because it delivers content right on the desktop of users all over the world. Some of the advantages that RSS enjoys is that it is not subject to ISP spam filters. Then there is the fact that consumers can customize their feeds so that they receive very specific information based on their niche area of interest. In a world where here is too much information being churned out too fast, this make plenty of sense and is bound to save people a lot of time.

However, despite its’ merits RSS feeds are different from email and there is no way that it will replace email any time soon.

Blogs Have Replaced Numerous Email Newsletters: What Does This Mean?

At the height of the spam crisis, it is true that many online entrepreneurs and publishers opted to have blogs running side by side with their email newsletters while others totally shut down their email lists in favor of blogs.

In fact this is one of the reasons why blogs shot up in popularity so quickly. The fact that there are many online marketers who have opted to stay away from email and have instead embraced blogs and RSS feeds does not change the facts on the ground.

The truth is that there are many other online entrepreneurs and marketers who totally rely on email marketing to make their money.

Opt-in Email Lists Can Hardly Be Replaced

Although folks are much more bound to subscribe information coming through an RSS feed rather than opt to receive a regular email newsletter the fact is that the latter is still one of the most valuable assets any online marketer can have. An opt-in email list is usually highly targeted and there are many online entrepreneurs who make a very good living from an opt-in email list with as little as 5000 names. These smart guys simply ensure that as they send out their valuable information, they include highly relevant ads and offers within their content. They never attempt to send out exclusively advertising messages to their opt-in email lists because people hate to be advertised to. But they do not mind relevant textual ads that are very closely linked to the area of interest being covered by the email newsletter that they have subscribed to.

Many owners of huge opt-in email lists never attempt to sell anything through their lists, they instead use them to drive repeat traffic to their sites and blogs where they predictably click on the Adsense ads adjacent to the new content. At the end of the day the site owner ends up making a substantial income from their opt-in email list without attempting to sell anything.

Email Safe Lists

In the same way people join massive advertising email lists at sites like yahoogroups.com and send out their ad messages to millions of people at a time. Despite the fact that not all recipients of such messages open all the email messages they receive, the fact of the matter is that catchy subject headings will tend to get a lot more readership. In fact there are some very respectable affiliate programs run by reputable corporations that have thrived on training their affiliates on the proper use of email safe lists.

Conclusion

So the answer to the question we started off with is a resounding “yes” despite all the problems, email safe lists and email marketing in general is still very much alive and thriving.

Do email advertising safe lists work anymore? | by David Callan

http://www.akamarketing.com/email-advertising-safe-lists.php