- Longer copy: An email is much longer in size and you can put as many photos and product details as you want. A print ad is limited in size and width. Color printing is even more expensive. an email is everybody color.
- Clear contact information: Your business logo, location, address and map can be included in an email with all relevant details bold and easy to see/find. Your print ad can take up more space for product features, leaving a little space for contact information. Often the address is in such a small font that one has to strain one’s eyes to see it.
- See full product details: The reader can click on the link and visit your website for more information at any time. For an advertisement, a reader cannot visit the store if it is night. Nothing more frustrating than waiting for the next day to talk to someone to find out more information. Often people forget everything the next day. Here goes another lost sale! Provide at least the website address in your print ad.
- Email has a long life: The holding power of a magazine is probably 1-2 hours. Once it is read, it is thrown away, or in a pile, never to be picked up again. An email is most often saved to the Inbox or filed in a folder. We have seen people contact us for information even after 9 months of sending the email.
- Online activity can be tracked: Once an email is opened, it can be tracked. We can analyze the links the reader clicked on, what pages, products they viewed and how much time they spent on the website. There is no such thing with a print ad. You don’t even know if your target audience got to see it, let alone how many did.
- Meet the prospect: An email can invite the user to leave their contact information to exit promotions, future discounts, private sales when new shipments arrive, etc. This is the first step to start building a relationship with the prospect and generating good quality leads.
- build regular contact: Once we get the visitors’ email address, we can contact them periodically and suggest them to buy additional products, gift them to their loved ones or simply refer new customers to us and get discounts/points. This begins to build a new and much deeper relationship with customers.
Customer information is your greatest asset
You don’t really know who is reading your print ad or how many sales you get from a print ad.
An email marketing campaign offers much better tracking in terms of success/failure, open rates, click rates, time spent, etc. The greatest asset is customer information: name, address, emails, what they bought, etc. With this information, you can continue to market them for future sales.
Build Customer Relationships
Have you ever wondered why Amazon is so successful, not because they had the largest inventory, but because of their excellent customer relationship building skills.
they did it with wish listsremembering what you browsed, greeting you with your name the next time you visit, and a simple one-touch interface so you never have to enter your information again.
Use email to reach your target market and build strong customer relationships. Then laugh all the way to the bank!
To your success…