Every day, when I check my email box, I see more than half of the unread emails are coming from different companies which have me in their email lists. These include newsletters and promotion notice from clothing and cosmetic companies, also travel deals from online booking systems. Some of these companies started to send me emails after I have shopped with them once, some are simply because I signed up for their email online.

I notice that email marketing are becoming more and more popular these days. Businesses are putting a lot of effort in developing communications with its potential and existing customers through emails. If I try to open the official site of a clothing business, for example, Club Monaco, you will see the following.

This block pops up before you can actually look at their website. It clearly states what benefit you can get by joining the club. They even differentiate the gender by having women’s update/ men’s update for you to choose from.

By having you fill out the sign up form, companies gather your personal information, such as gender, age, also individual preferences on what kind of information you are interested to receive. This allows them to segment the subscribers, send information according to their preferences, even personalized deals such as sending birthday offers.

Email marketing is a very fast and cheap way of communicating with customers, subscribers gets to know about the sales before they go shopping in a mall, or find out about it on Google. Due to the substantial amount of internet and email users, this marketing method can reach a wide range of consumers quickly. It is also an effective way of building long term relationship with consumers and retaining their loyalty.

One of the drawbacks I experienced with Email marketing is the increasing number of spams I get. It is very important for businesses to keep the email account and personal information confidential. When we sign up for those newsletters, we should also be mindful of those check boxes on the bottom to avoid the possibility of being spammed in the future.