Today I thought I’d mention something that I’ve been working on recently – email marketing campaigns.
We have had some great success with email marketing campaigns recently, and have got a good few contracts as a direct result of them (not for web design just yet though, these are for our health and safety courses and ripplecups). A great tool for this kind of marketing is Campaign Monitor which, for a very small fee ($5 plus 1c per email address), tracks the html or text emails to each recipient and shows who has opened the email, who has clicked on hyperlinks and which hyperlinks have been of most interest.
So far we have only targeted people who have expressed an interest in receiving correspondence, or companies who our products would benefit (such as health and safety training providers).
But the question is… at what point does email marketing become spam? UK law appears to permit email marketing if the email address has been gathered from a sale, if the marketing is in respect of that person’s similar products, and if the recipient is given the chance to opt out of further communication. But even if you adhere to these rules, can direct email marketing do your company harm by showing you to be a nuisance? Or is the unsubscribe link enough to put peoples' minds at rest that you won't bother them again?
Has anyone found that direct email marketing has done you or your company harm, or is it generally a successful endeavour?
