Email Marketing

 Email is considered by many to be the “killer app” that propelled the early years of the Internet and set the stage for the advent of social media channels. Email today is still one of the most important and dominant forms of digital communications. Your assignment for this week involves doing some research into how businesses use email to drive people to their website to buy something, or take some other action. Here’s what I’d like each of you to do this week: About how many emails do you receive in a typical day? What percentage (rough estimate will do) are “legit emails from people you know and trust, or newsletters you sighed up for, or others that you view as acceptable. What perf engage do you consider to be Spam, or Phishing emails (if you’re not familiar with these terms look them up). Next, find a commercial email THAT YOU SIGNED-UP FOR (i.e. NOT Spam) and recently received that you’re willing to share with the class. Maybe it’s from a retailer that you follow, or a newsletter (I get 5-6 each day about marketing or technology topics), or a weekly notice about products for sale (I get these frequently from companies such as L.L. Bean, Amazon, BJs, and other companies) Next, take a “picture”, or “screen grab” of the email and embed, or attach it to your posting so that everyone can see it. What led you to sign up for, or opt-in to this email list in the first place? How often do you receive emails from this sender? Are you happy to get them, or do they annoy you? What was the subject line of the email? How did it entice you to open up the email? Did the content you found match the subject line? What was the call to action? Was it effective? Did you click on any link in the email? Was the content of the email appropriate? Did the email achieve its objective? This could include something other than inducing a click. For example, if it’s a newsletter, did it help to build the brand image? If you were in charge of email marketing for the company that sent you the email, what would you do differently? What should the next email from this sender include?