Opt-in e-mail advertising

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with E-mail marketing. (Discuss)

Opt-in e-mail advertising or permission marketing is a method of advertising by electronic mail wherein the recipient of the advertisement has consented to receive it. It is one of several ways developed by marketers to eliminate the disadvantages of e-mail marketing.

E-mail has become a very popular mode of communication across the world. It has also become extremely popular to advertise through . Some of the many advantages of advertising through e-mail are the direct contact with the consumer and is “inexpensive, flexible, and simple to implement” (Fairhead, 2003). There are also disadvantages attached to e-mail advertising such as, alienating the consumer because of overload to messages or the advertisement getting deleted without getting read.

Permission e-mail marketing may evolve into a technology that uses a handshake protocol between sender and receiver (Fairhaed, 2003). This system is intended to eventually result in a high degree of satisfaction between consumers and marketers. If opt-in e-mail advertising is used, the material that is emailed to consumers will be “anticipated.” It is assumed that the consumer wants to receive it, which makes it unlike unsolicited advertisements sent to the consumer (often referred to as spam). Ideally, opt-in e-mail advertisements will be more personal and relevant to the consumer than untargetted advertisements.

A common example of permission marketing is a newsletter sent to a firm’s customers. Newsletters like this are a way to let customers know about upcoming events or promotions, or new products. In this type of advertising, a company that wants to send a newsletter to their customers may ask them at the point of purchase if they would like to receive this newsletter.

With a foundation of opted-in contact information stored in a database, marketers can automatically send out promotional materials. The marketers can also segment their promotions to specific market segments.

[edit] Email Marketing Services and CAN-SPAM Compliance

Because the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 authorizes an USD 11,000 penalty per violation for spamming each individual recipient, many commercial e-mail marketers within the United States utilize a service or special software that helps ensure compliance with the Act. A variety of older systems exist which do not ensure compliance with the Act. To comply with the Act's regulation of commercial e-mail, services typically: require users to authenticate their return address and include a valid physical address, provide a one-click unsubscribe feature, and prohibit importing lists of purchased addresses which may not have given valid permission.

In addition to satisfying legal requirements, services such as ConstantContact and PoliteMail help customers to set up and manage their own e-mail marketing campaigns. The services provide e-mail templates, automatically handle subscriptions and removals, and generate statistics on how many messages were received and openned, and whether the recipients clicked on any links within the messages.

[edit] References

  • Fairhead, N. (2003) “All hail the brave new world of permission marketing via email” (Media 16, August 2003)
  • O'Brian J. & Montazemia, A. (2004) Management Information Systems (Canada: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd.)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../o/p/t/Opt-in_e-mail_advertising.html"