There are lots of factors to having an effective email marketing campaign. The most important though is getting your email opened. In the articles we have read in class it brings up a very good point, no matter how good of an offer or message you have to send out if it is not opened it will not get read. Over the summer I worked for the Portland Thunder Arena Football League team. During that time I was tasked with contacting businesses and finding sponsors for the team. To do this I ended up sending a lot of emails to businesses to inform them about the team and the services and products that we had available. What I found that worked the most for getting responses from businesses was qualifying prospects before contacting them. By contacting only businesses that would have interest in our product and would have the authority to make a decision on signing with us we were able to up our response rates and not waste time on prospects who would not be interested. Some other things that are important to think about is thinking about your title and subject lines. By being different in your tile and subject lines you can gain interest in your emails and increase the likelihood of them being opened.  After having your email it is important to think of the look and feel of it. To much type makes it feel overbearing and makes it a prime candidate to be deleted, while not enough does not deliver the message you want conveyed. Including pictures can help limit the space for type and help clarify what you are offering, but also can distract. It is important to strike a balance when formulating these emails so that they are aesthetically pleasing to look at and read.  Next every email promotion should include relevant information to the product or service offered and a call to action to motivate their decision. Their is no point in spending all of this money in email advertising if the email does not help sell products.To maximize an emails effectiveness key details and facts should be included to inform customers of what you are offering and why it is so great. Also by instilling a call to action it can motivate people who are on the fence. I for one remember times of looking at NFL jerseys and never actually making the purchase until I got an email from NFL.com offering limited edition New England Patriot Super Bowl Jerseys. That limited time offer stamp at the end of the email was enough to get me off the fence and make the purchase.  Finally to maintain the effectiveness of your email campaign you need to be honest and consistent with your emails. Let people know what to expect from you if you are going to in contact with them continually and do what you say you are going to do. The biggest thing to remember is under promise and over deliver. Make people know that receiving emails from you is going to benefit them and not just a cheap way for you to advertise.

               Everyone has heard the saying “Two heads are better than one”. I believe this saying is especially true when talking about an email campaign. While an email can help raise awareness of a product or foster a call to action the more ways you can approach someone with an idea is the better. When I think of myself a lot of times I see things that I like or think are good ideas, but forget about them pretty quickly until they are presented to me again. Before I make an action I like to see something a few times to think about it before I actually go through with the action. Most people are the same way so getting your message to your customers multiple times is important. However, sending the same email to someone multiple times is a good way to end up on their spam list. So finding avenues that filter customers to your message is a must. Social media can be effective as they are some of the most frequented sites, however when people are looking at social media they are not necessarily looking for products. Television, print, and radio advertising are also very good, especially when you can attach your message to something that works with it, such as advertising during basketball games if you are advertising a sale on athletic gear. Finally banner ads are another great avenue to pursue. These ads can be placed on pages that also cater to your target customer.

               Every industry has a different response rate. This is a result of every companies having a different end goal of their email marketing campaign. Some companies are just trying to spread information in emails and are not necessarily looking for a response rate. Also they can vary based on the industry. Car advertisements are not going to have as a response rate as things that people buy constantly, so while a 2% response rate might be bad for one company it might be a gold standard for another. Some other key metrics to look at in this kind of IMC are Return on Investment (ROI) and Lifetime value of Customer. If you spend $500 on a campaign per customer and they end up spending $400 as a result of the campaign then the ROI is negative for that customer. This can also be applied to the whole target base of the campaign. Also if that customer that spent $400 continues to buy from the company over his lifetime then his lifetime value increases and the results of the campaign improve. With regards to email campaigns though some specific metrics to look at are open rates, bounce rates, and click through rates. The open rate is how many people actually open and read the email that you sent them. The bounce rate is how many of your emails did not make it past spam filters, processed into a different folder, or were rejected for some other reason. Most importantly the click through rate is how many people after reading your email clicked on the link in the email and visited whatever page or ad you intended them to.

               I think email marketing will continue to be a key component in five years. The ability of email marketing to reach so many people for such a cheap cost leads it to be effective. One person can formulate an email and send it to millions of people all of which can become customers. By formulating a list of quality customers this technique can be extremely effective so I do not see it becoming irrelevant anytime soon.

Examples of successful email campaigns: http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/email-marketing-examples-list

For E-mail response rates by industry: http://mailchimp.com/resources/research/email-marketing-benchmarks/

http://successwise.com/what-is-a-good-response-rate

http://leaderswest.com/2014/10/19/8-keys-successful-email-marketing-campaign/

http://www.superseventies.com/infobank/emailmarketing/combiningemail.html