Chapter 4

In Chapter 4, the book discusses turning potential customers into actual customers through the correct use of email. Email if used correctly has the power to exceed the results generated by conventional direct mail, newspaper, and magazine advertising. The Internet is one of the very few media formats that actually allow advertisers to count how many impression and responses their advertisements receive, allowing their success to be measured.  Email can be considered the oldest form of social media, first beginning in 1971. It is a free form of marketing that is usually not used to make sales, but to build the trust of customers by forming stronger consumer relationships with existing customers.

It seems as long as there has been email there has been SPAM that has coincident with it. It has been researched that email users spend about one hour each week deleting spam, potential time that consumers could use opening emails that are targeted to them.  Spamming is the act of sending unsolicited commercial email implying that someone has sent a message that has no value or substance inside for the recipient. Spam filters are online tools that are used to constantly survey and identify spam, and trigger these spam filter. Because of the potential of these spam email the content of the email becomes the most fundamental part of an email and that it’s answers the recipient’s question of “What is in it for me?”

That question that is subconsciously asked by the recipient must be answered within the first seconds. If the headline does catch the eye of the consumer it becomes the five second rule for them to open the email to view the content. Every time a customer opens an email a transaction happens, almost like a sale to where they evaluate the offer and compares the product or service to the total cost of the transaction. Interesting to think that all that happens in the head of the recipient in about five seconds. It is through those five seconds that the advertiser must achieve their primary goal to convert that message from a click through to a web page, while maintaining or building a trusted network.

For me, in the past four years I have had to create three new emails based on the fact that my other two were receiving too much SPAM. Now as an advertising major I am a little more understanding to receive these emails, but at times I can’t help but think about the effectiveness of some. While some emails target the right audiences, there is a lot of SPAM that does not. For example, I received three emails today from Lenscrafters, I don’t wear or need glasses. Or the other day when I received a couple of promotional emails for a tropical vacation to the Caribbean for two, the emails probably not realizing that I am college student with limited income. The emails just listed are ineffective and didn’t serve their purpose of grabbing the attention of the recipient. For this reason, I understood that book’s section on an effective headline and related it to my own experiences with promotional emails. Unless I see the words “Big Sale” in bright red letters or “Free” in all caps, I will most like not click open the email. I feel like email could be a great way to reach consumers if attempted properly, but it unfortunate that whenever we think of advertising through email, we think of SPAM in a negative way. Because of this I think advertisers and art/creative directors of campaign and brands have to now find new and innovative ways to reach people through this vehicle.