Email Marketing - The End Is Nigh!

Consider if you will the resources, the time and the financial investment given to attracting new web traffic. Banner advertising, link exchanges, search engine ratings, affiliate schemes and the list goes on. Yet when it comes to retaining a customer?s future business or even a return visit, we simply hope that they will opt-in to a newsletter mailing list and everything will be okay.

Of course the truth of opt-in email marketing is far from okay. For a start, people, especially private individuals, frequently change their email address. For many people, email addresses are a disposable accessory, which should be replaced every few weeks when the Spam starts rolling in. I don?t know about you, but I have enough trouble keeping up with the email changes of my friends and family, let alone a list of a few thousand customers and potential customers.

Typing ?email marketing? into Google will return literally thousands of software products and services all promising to make your email campaign more successful and slick. Of course it doesn?t matter how much or how little you expend on your email newsletter, it will still be one subject line of possibly hundreds, all screaming for attention.

 Average email click through rates fell from 5.4% in 1999 to just 1.8% in 2003 (Source eMarketer)

 27% of emails never get opened and of those that are opened only 23% are read thoroughly (Source: J Neilsen)

 Average open rate for B2B emails has fallen by 42% since 2001 (Source eMarketer)

Although such statistics make grim reading, worse is yet to come. Some industry experts are predicting a total collapse of the email infrastructure within the next five years due to the shear volume of traffic. A technology dating back to the 1960?s, email was developed as a means for geeks to communicate with other geeks, about something they had seen in the alt.freakygeek newsgroup. It was never designed to cope with the demands of mass marketing which have been inflicted upon it since the arrival of the WWW. So with that in mind, it is something of a miracle and a credit to the technology of yesteryear that it continues to work at all.

Recent research commissioned by Yahoo revealed that the average British PC has nine ?sick days? a year, two more than the average for human workers. Six of these days are lost battling against Spam, while a further three are taken up combating viruses.

The Yahoo findings went on to reveal that nearly half of British computer users find dealing with junk e-mails more stressful than traffic jams and the majority want service providers to act.

But I?m no Spammer, I hear you cry! No, but your legitimate email is going to have to share the same inbox as the volumes of Spam and with only a Subject Line to stand out from the crowd, is it any wonder that email is becoming so ineffective as a marketing tool?

Clearly, alternatives to email marketing need to be developed. One emerging technology being pioneered by three software houses in the UK is that of One-2-Many Broadcasting. Already employed by the BBC, Visa, and many other blue-chip Net companies, One-2-Many Broadcasting offers a far-improved method of communicating with customers than opt-in email marketing or newsletters and already being hailed as the THE next big marketing tool.

One-2-Many Broadcasting involves the customer downloading a small client onto their PC. The customer can filter and influence what information they receive from within the software client. Once installed the website can then communicate directly with that customer by broadcasting information in a wide range of formats, all of which is attractively presented directly onto the customer?s screen. Sounds frighteningly, intrusive doesn?t it? Well, not according to the millions of people who are already receiving information from the latest news through to film clips of the latest movie releases. One London based soccer club, Arsenal, has reported a phenomenal take-up of their One-2-Many Broadcasting Service, with over 100,000 subscribers in the first 12 months of operating.

So will One-2-Many replace email marketing? Who knows, I suspect that over the coming years a variety of marketing alternatives will appear, of which One-2-Many will hold a share of the market. In developing alternatives to email marketing one of the major factors will and is that of price; emails are extremely cheap. Any alternative therefore, if it is to be successful, needs to be competitively priced and rich in unique features.

To date, One-2-Many Broadcasting has been relatively expensive and financially not an option for most small to medium sized businesses. As the concept of One-2-Many marketing is developed, more and different software is likely to emerge, which will in itself introduce competition and hopefully lower prices.

For more information and reading on One-2-Many Broadcasting:

www.skinkers.com

www.edesktop.co.uk

www.desknet.co.uk

To experience One-2-Many Broadcasting: http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,70061-1109118,00.html - Sky News Alerts

http://www.arsenal.com/Userincludes/desktopwenger/InstallDesktopWengerNT.exe ? Arsenal FC

About The Author

Robert Palmer is CEO of deskNET Communications www.desknet.co.uk and is a leading architect in the development of One-2-Many Broadcasting software.

More Email Marketing Articles

7 Ways Email Can End Your Business Relationships Before They Start
Too often, people forget they're anonymous in the internet world. Your friends and colleagues might know you as being a tireless worker, a great friend and loving parent, but I don't know that.

Dont Use FFAs To Build Your Newsletter Subscriber
For those of you who aren't familiar with the term, The initials FFA stand for "FREE For All" and my advice would be don't waste your time! FFA's DON'T WORK!FFA sites are directories where anyone can place their ad for free. And that's exactly what you get--a zillion people posting free ads.

Power at your Fingertips
It is just amazing. Power right at your fingertips.

Persistence, Patience, Dedication - The Nick Martin Interview
Name: Nicholas John Martin aka Nick MartinAge: 24Residence: Copenhagen, Denmark (Europe)Business name: LifeStyleNetworkerBusiness address: http://www.LifeStyleNetworker.

8 Ways to Get More Email Addresses On Your List ... Today
Whether you've got 100 or 100,000 people on your email list, chances are you can optimize your web page to better feature and promote your ezine. Here's a few ways to capture more customers and leads - without having to increase your traffic.

E-mail 101: The Dos and Donts
Even though many people have been writing e-mails for a few years now, you would be amazed at some of the pure gibberish that arrives in my e-mailbox on a regular basis.Many people seem to think that because they aren't dealing directly with another person (or as directly as they would be face-to-face or by telephone), all forms of civility and basic respect for the other person (i.

The Lazy Way To Build A Responsive Opt-In Email List
If you're in business on the Internet to make a profit, then you're probably aware of how significant a list of prospects is to your success.But what if you don't want to spend countless hours each and every week promoting, writing and managing a continuous email publication?Well, here's a relatively-unused strategy you can apply to nurture a list of prospects who not only trust you, but are also eager for more of your expertise.

Top 5 Reasons to Use Autoresponders
One of the best and newest tools out there for generating revenue is the Auto-Responder. If you aren't using this tool in your business you are *losing money*!Many times customers arrive at your website but aren't quite ready to buy.

Interview With Michael Murray: Autoresponder Basics
This interview is with Michael Murray, the author of a top selling ebook titled ?Autoresponder Basics.? Michael is also involved with many excellent affiliate programs.

Personalizing Your Emails? An Amazing Technique That Doubles Your Click Throughs And Profits
Are you publishing an ezine or offering an email course? Are you talking with your subscriber through your ezine or email course? If so what are you calling them?"Hello John"? or"Hello friend"? or"Hello"?If you want to feel the difference between the above three, stand infront of a mirror and call yourself with above three ways. Which one is more pleasing for you? The same with your subscriber too!What is personalizing of emails means?At the beginning of the emails instead of starting the message directly we will call the person by name like 'Dear John'.