ATTITUDE OF CUSTOMERS TOWARDS E-MAIL AS TOOL FOR E-MARKETING
Mr. Sony Varghese, Asst Professor XIME-Kochi
ABSTRACT
Email marketing is one of the most price effective and well liked Technique of marketing in the internet world since its boom in 1990’s and has been adopted by almost all online business. The current study is aimed at highlighting the potential of emerging concept of e-mail marketing. Customers have shown inclination to accept them as a tool of promotion. Although customers do invite marketing communications from companies, substantial number unsubscribe and withdraw very quickly. Understanding the attitude of the customers can help fine tune the practice of email marketing in order to achieve higher efficiencies and effectiveness. The present study is mainly based on 40 consumers from Ernakulum district. While selecting the sample due consideration was given to the factors like area, class of service, gender etc. The study also reveals that the broad categories of information which generate interest through e-mail marketing. From the study we can get a clear idea about the reasons for not accepting certain types of emails. This study is an attempt to high light the issues related with implementation of e-mail marketing.
Key words: Email, E marketing, Online Business
INTRODUCTION
Internet is changing the way consumers shop and buy goods and services, and has rapidly evolved in to a global phenomenon. Many companies have started using the internet with the aim of cutting market costs, thereby reducing the price of their products and services in order to stay ahead in highly competitive markets. Companies also use internet to convey, communicate and disseminate information, to sell the product, to take feed- back and also to conduct satisfaction surveys with customers. Customers use the internet not only to buy the product online, but also to compare prices, product features and after sales service facilities they will receive if they purchase the product from a store.
Email marketing is one of the most price effective and well liked Technique for marketing in the internet world since its boom in 1990’s and has been adopted by almost all online business. Email marketing envisions shaping and targeting behavior of customers through online reinforcement. The main objective of email marketing is the promotion of the business and also to make the customers aware of the development of the business. Every business these days uses emails to improve their relations with clients/ inform them about their new products or services/ or establish new connections.
Today’s customer is becoming more information oriented and value conscious. While every company is trying to differentiate, all the companies are required to take care of customization and personalization in e-mails.
OBJECTIVES
1 To know about the concept and importance of E-mail marketing. 2 To study about the pros and cons of email marketing.
METHODOLOGY
The investigator used primary as well as secondary data for the present study. The study covers 40 respondents from Ernakulum district, who are internet users and an interview has been conducted to collect the Primary data about their attitude towards email as a tool for e-marketing. Respondents were in the category of businessman, employees, students and others. Secondary information has been collected from books journals and various websites. Tables and percentage analysis were used to find out the attitude of customers towards email marketing.
EMAIL MARKETING
Promoting a product, brand or service as an advertisement on electronic mail is known as email marketing. It can be targeted to better the relationship between existing and prospective customers and a business.
Email marketing is a practical, low-cost marketing tool that combines convenience with technology. It provides small business owners with the ability to reach more customers, which in turn can result in increased sales. Most business owners today use email marketing campaigns to promote all sorts of services and products, from babysitting services to mobile phones and beyond.
OF EMAIL MARKETING IN ONLINE BUSINESS
Email marketing appears to be an answer to the changing business environment, competition and drawbacks of traditional marketing approach. Email marketing is an extremely cost-effective way to communicate with prospective and existing customers. The key objective of email marketing for most business is to create “brand awareness”.
Email marketing would be the best source of earning money as much as you can. Email marketing helps to make money online. Email marketing offers you different varieties and tactics of marketing. Following these tactics, one can easily reach to right customer at right time to sell his product. It has made your access easy to find people.
Email marketing makes your good reputation for selling your product in global village. In this way, you get fame and become famous for your product among people. Thus email marketing is the best source for your recognition in the world. You can get feedback from your customer on your product through email marketing and know which product is most selling product. If you sell more than one product, you can know which product is being most liked by people.
Today, Email marketing is very effective and useful source of marketing and earning money than other sources of marketing and earning money. This is why; the number of users of email marketing is rapidly increasing in these days.
ADVANTAGES
Reduced time and effort
Email marketing is quick and efficient unlike the conventional marketing. A marketing email can be created in hours and reach millions of people in a short span of time in a quick few seconds.
Real time messages
You can even send unique real- time messages to customers that arrive on their birth days or anniversaries.
More frequent communications
Reduce overhead costs
Email marketing can be done at a very low overhead cost! You don’t need a ton of employees, designers, or marketing analysts. You don’t need to pay for printing, postal mailing costs, phone lines, or advertising rates.
Quick feed- back system
Email marketing supports a quick feed- back system, which is very difficult in any other traditional method of marketing. Customers can immediately respond to the marketer.
Increase customer satisfaction
It is possible to personalize and target specific information to specific contacts within your database. Email marketing helps to build initial relationship with your customers as you can learn from their feed- back and move the sales process on effectively with the best success.
Boost brand awareness
Email marketing enables the companies to show off their best assets to drive awareness that you should be getting.
Adjustability
Being able to track receipt of email, number of emails opened and read, and the amount of recipients who clicked on your business link from your email allows you to make timely changes to your email marketing campaigns in order to improve their efficacy.
Disadvantages Spam
Email marketing suffers from spam. These days, email services come integrated with spam filters to eliminate such emails from the inbox.
Some small business do not realize the power of email marketing therefore do not use it to its full extent, and miss out on a lot of good business opportunities.
Your email marketing messages have to be short, quick and to the point you should not try to describe your product in great detail. Email marketing should not be overdone. This tends to curb creativity and advertising expertise to good use in your website.
ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
Table1
Gender wise distribution of Respondents
Gender No of respondents Percentage
Male 22 55
Female 18 45
Total 40 100
Out of the 40 respondents 55% was male and 45 % was female respondents.
Table 2
Occupation wise classification of respondents
Category No of respondents Percentage
Business man 7 17.5
Employees 15 37.5
Students 13 32.5
Others 5 12.5
Total 40 100
Table 3
Frequency of email checking by the respondents
Frequency No of respondents Percentage
Every day 14 35
2-3 days in a week 19 47.5
Once in a week 7 17.5
Total 40 100
Majority of respondents (19/40) checks email 2-3 days in a week. 35% of the respondents checks email every day.
Table 4
Reasons for subscribing emails
Parameter No of respondents Percentage
Fun 14 35
Education 13 32.5
Shopping 2 5
Business 7 17.5
Information 4 10
Table 4 reveals that 35 % of the respondents received emails for fun, 13 respondents used it for educational purpose and only 2 persons used it for shopping purpose.
Table 5
Reasons for not accepting certain emails
Parameters No of respondents Percentage
Irrelevant 5 12.5
Time consuming 21 52.5
Too much information 3 7.5
Boring 7 17.5
Space in mail box 4 10
Total 40 100
Table 5 represents reasons for not accepting certain types of email. Most of the emails were reported to be too lengthy which block a lot of space in the mail box. Also many of the emails were found to be boring (7/40) and irrelevant (5/40) by the users. 21 respondents suggest that most of the emails are time consuming.
CONCLUSION
The current study is aimed at highlighting the potential of emerging concept of e-mail marketing. The study explores the possibilities of using emails as a source of competitive advantages for marketing by reaching the customers beyond geographical limits and further reducing costs, understanding consumer’s behavior, providing services to the customers at their door steps.
REFERENCES
Journal of electronic commerce research Southern economist
www.email marketing gold.com Davechaffey.com
