Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
The Essentials of Today's Marketing-2, İnci ERDOĞAN TARAKÇI,Ramazan ASLAN, Editör, Efe Akademi, İstanbul, ss.183-210, 2023
E-MAIL MARKETING IN ALL ITS DIMENSIONS: LITERATURE, SERVER SELECTION, AUXILIARY TOOLS, SAMPLE CODING AND DESIGN
Introduction
Developments in internet technology bring advantages that make our lives easier for us in many areas. Many businesses use the internet as a marketing tool in order to gain more market share and gain customers in their intensely competitive markets with this reality. Our e-mail, which is realized through the Internet and reaches the other party’s mailbox in line with predetermined marketing targets, becomes a very critical marketing tool for us. According to data from TurkHost (2022), the number of e-mail users worldwide is around 4.03 billion and approximately 306.4 billion e-mails are sent every day. Despite the growing popularity of messengers, chat apps, and social media, e-mail has managed to remain at the center of digital communication and continues to grow every year. By 2025, the number of global e-mail users is expected to reach a total of 4.6 billion (Statista, 2023b). Businesses are always looking for ways to communicate with their customers easier, cheaper and faster. The Internet embodies all three of these sought-after features (Gedik, 2020). The incredible change in information technologies and the rapid transformation of internet technologies have forced businesses to change. With the pressure of technology, competition in the market and consumers, businesses have restructured their processes. Meanwhile, the Internet has emerged as an important marketing tool. With its advantages for both consumers and businesses, it has been accepted by everyone and has started to spread rapidly (Özdipçiner, 2010). In recent years, due to changing market conditions and consumer needs, it has become a necessity to communicate with consumers faster and more quickly. With the Internet becoming one of the most useful communication tools, e-mail marketing, one of the direct marketing techniques, has become an important method of communicating with consumers (Uydacı, 2004). People now access information much faster. As a result, the purchasing behavior of users in the developing digital world is changing. In this change, the creation of content by users with web 2.0 technology has been one of the most important turning points in the history of digital marketing (Gökşin, 2018). In terms of digital marketing tools, e-mail marketing has many advantages. The main advantages can be expressed as promoting your products or services, creating interaction with your brand, driving traffic to your site, gaining more customers, turning one-time buyers into loyal followers (TRWIX, 2021). Other advantages are that it is very cost-effective, has a fast and high return rate interaction, the likelihood of the message being seen, that is, the rate of reaching your customer is high, and it can create marketing strategies and activities by creating profiles suitable for your target market. In addition, being able to evaluate the results of your activities and finding the opportunity for personalized interaction and promotion are other prominent advantages of e-mail marketing (EGBİLİSİM, 2021). In this section, the e-mail marketing approach, which has an important place among digital marketing strategies from past to present, will be discussed conceptually, the prominent studies on e-mail marketing in the literature will be analyzed with the bibliometric method, and examples of templates and codes used for sample e-mail marketing will be presented. In addition, important points to be considered while doing e-mail marketing will be evaluated. It is desired that the study will be a comprehensive evaluation article that continues to exist in the field of digital marketing without losing its importance with the introduction of the internet into every aspect of our lives.
E-Mail Marketing as a Concept and Some Statistics
Electronic marketing can be defined as the delivery of products or services from seller to buyer via electronic mail. One of the sub-methods of electronic marketing tools that has never lost its importance and function over the years is e-mail marketing. Direct mails sent electronically instead of traditional postal service are called e-mail or electronic mail. E-mail marketing or e-mail marketing is the use of e-mail services to develop relationships with existing customers or potential customers and to promote products and services (Çetinkaya, 2021). Çetin & Tiltay (2021) stated that e-mail marketing is an electronic marketing tool that emerged with the development of the internet. These messages, which can be supported by many visuals or textual interaction or sound, are more remarkable than those on paper and ensure that the message to be given to the customer is perceived correctly. In addition, this method of marketing eliminates many of the problems that can occur in the traditional distribution of advertising brochures. It also saves a significant amount of time. In addition, this system also provides the opportunity to reach people when they are not at their workplaces and to communicate interactively through an electronic communication network (Uydaci, 2004). Within the framework of marketing science, there are three types of email message content. Businesses should develop strategies by distinguishing these three groups from each other in e-mail marketing practices. The first one is messages for communication purposes. This feature constitutes the first purpose of electronic mail. Second, messages with information content. At the forefront are messages that inform, educate and raise awareness of the consumer. Hidden advertising is also used in these messages. The third is direct advertising e-mails. Such messages are used for purposes such as bringing the product to the forefront, notifying an important date such as the opening date of a business, informing about campaigns and mobilizing for purchase (Haşıloğlu & Süer, 2010). E-mail marketing, which has become the center of attention with the reshaping of all communication tools in our digitalizing world and especially with Web 2.0, is a much more strategic, planned, measurable and highly interactive form of communication compared to the communication tools of the past (EGBILİSİM, 2021). In recent years, it is thought that marketing methods will change dimensions with the metaverse technology, which is the most current trend of the Internet, Web 3.0 and virtual reality perception (Damar, 2021). According to Gedik (2020), e-mail marketing is an online marketing technique that uses e-mail to send advertising or commercial information. Email marketing is an extremely attractive marketing tool for businesses with its low cost, high return on investment and the advantage of creating brand loyalty. Deniz (2002) defines e-mail marketing as the use of e-mail method by businesses in communication, promotion, sales and marketing activities by utilizing the Internet environment in order to realize marketing activities in a more effective, efficient, fast and comprehensive manner. O’Neill (2022) provides a comprehensive assessment of e-mail marketing. The findings from the researcher’s evaluation that will contribute to our study and will be of interest to researchers are compiled and shown in Figure 1.
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Evaluation on the Studies in the Literature
E-mail marketing is an important digital marketing tool that entered our lives especially, in the nineties. Under this title, an evaluation of the studies on e-mail marketing in the literature will be presented from a bibliometric perspective. For the analysis, the most important data source in terms of bibliometric databases such as Web of Science is taken as a reference. The words used for our search words are as follows: “e-mail marketing” or “mail marketing” or “e-mail marketing”. The related search was conducted on 20/03/2023. As a result of the search, 220 documents were accessed on the Web of Science Core Collection.
The distribution of the related documents according to their types is as follows: article (f:154, 70.00%), proceeding paper (f:61; 27.72%), book chapters (f:7; 3.18%), early access (f:5; 2.27%), review article (f:4; 1.81%), editorial material (f:2; 0.90%), book review (f:1; 0.45%). Most of the studies were conducted in English (f:214, 97.27%). Other languages are as follows; Russian (f:3, 1.36%), Italian (f:1, 0.45%), Portuguese (f:1, 0.45%), Slovak (f:1, 0.45%). In the analysis of the funding status of the studies, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (f:11, 5.00%), National Institutes of Health USA (f:7, 3.18%) National Cancer Institute USA (f:6, 2.72%), National Science Foundation (f:5, 2.27%), United States Health Resources Service Administration (f:5, 2.27%), Fundacao Para A Ciencia EA Tecnologia (f:3, 1.36%) come to the fore. Health institutions have an important place among funding institutions. The number of publications produced over the years is shown in the figure below.
Figure 2. Documents Produced on E-Mail Marketing Over the Years According to the results of our Web of Science search on e-mail marketing, the first study in the field of e-mail marketing was published by Garfield (1983) in Current Contents magazine in 1983 with the title “Junk Mail and Targeted Direct Mail Marketing-There Is A Difference”. The second study was presented in 1989 by Smart et al. (1989) at the Summer Educators Conference On Enhancing Knowledge Development in Marketing under the title Videolog Retailing - How Effective Is This New Form of Direct Mail Marketing. 190Published in 1992 by Fischer & Byers (1992) in the Journal of Systems Management, published in 1995 by Walker in Cd-Rom Professional (Walker, 1995), published in 1999 by Dysart, J. in Die Casting Engineer (Dysart, 1999), it is seen that the studies accelerated in the 2000s and 15 studies were carried out in 2021, 20 studies in 2022 and 6 studies in 2023, although the current year is not over. Of course, it should not be overlooked that the rapid spread of the internet at the end of the nineties and the introduction of personal computers into every home and workplace had a great impact on this (Hudák et al., 2017; Gedik, 2020). Of course, it is important to know what the institutions, researchers, and countries that attach importance to this field are in the literature on e-mail marketing, which is rapidly increasing in importance with internet technology, and to reveal the prominent discussions in the studies conducted in this direction in the literature. This information is explained below in order.
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Things to Consider for E-Mail Marketing
Gökşin (2018) emphasized the importance of determining the e-mail target and content, e-mail title, e-mail content, testing, market segmentation and delivery, personalization and measurement for the e-mail marketing process. He also emphasized the importance of the question of what the frequency of e-mail sending will be. Email length is also an important issue for online users. In 2016, Boomerang conducted a comprehensive study of more than 40 million emails to determine which factors lead to the highest response rates. It found that emails with 50-125 words had the highest response rate at 51%. Above 2500 words, response rates dropped below 35%. However, subject lines of only 3- 4 words had the highest response rate, while emails with no subject line had a 14% response rate (Moore, 2016). This shows that email length is as important as content in email marketing. The most important point in e-mail marketing is to get users to click on your e-mail and read the content. Therefore, brands need to increase their email click-through and read rates by using some strategies in order to deliver their e-mails to more people. In order to make a correct and effective e-mail marketing, the following are stated below (EGBİLİSİM, 2021); • It should create authorized user data, • The list to be sent should be analyzed in detail, 202• E-mail content should be tailored to the relevance of the target audience, • An effective title should be created in accordance with the content of the e-mail to be sent, • The frequency of mailing should be determined correctly and the results should be analyzed well, • E-mails should be compatible with mobile devices and content should be prepared accordingly, • Submissions should not involve intense selling pressure, • Spam content should not be sent, • Users who are on your list and who have voluntarily unsubscribed from your list should not be persistent by sending e-mails again, • Effective, striking and attention-grabbing headlines should be used, • Standard or similar templates should not be used for each e-mail, • The same product and service should not be sent more than once, • Social media accounts should be included in e-mails, • The e-mail sending time should be planned correctly and should not be sent in inappropriate time zones. When it comes to e-mail marketing, it is critical and very important to send e-mails as often as possible without disturbing your customers. The main reason why it is important is to reach the customer as often as possible and to gain a place in their memory in accordance with our marketing strategy. Setrow (2023) stated that new companies should send an e-mail once a week and the number of e-mails should be based on customer feedback. This will require some trial and error. It is important to start slowly and see customer feedback here. E-mails are also one of the main ways viruses spread. It is not recommended to open unknown file attachments (Okay, 2011). Many of the most important cyber-attacks in world history started with a simple mail. Therefore, companies that provide mail server services and users who are afraid of cyber-attacks avoid an attack by mail. For example; Melissa Virus, which was started with a simple e-mail, caused many companies to stop their activities with the traffic it created on the network. Even Microsoft was among the damaged companies, and it crashed the company’s systems and left 80 million dollars of damage (Webtekno, 2022). At this point, it is important that we continue our activities without entering the spam list.
You can do many operations such as checking MX records, mail server IP blacklist control with MXToolbox. If you are going to receive a mail marketing service from a company, you can also compare server IP addresses here. We can even recommend you to do the same check on the website hosting service. Because being blacklisted is a big loss of reputation for a website or mail marketing tool. Figure 8. View of a Sample Domain in the MXToolBox Blacklist Sources: MXToolbox, 2023 Uydaci (2004) emphasized that for effective e-mail marketing; the importance of having voluntary registrations in the customer list, the importance of easy and safe unsubscribing from the relevant list, the need to tailor messages to customers, the importance of personalization practices, the need to create appropriate content, the importance of scalability of the system used and the possibility of expansion. He also stated that in e-mail marketing, the frequency of e-mails should be adjusted, content and message control, returned messages should be taken into consideration, and opportunities should be well utilized to leave a lasting impression. Erdoğan (2018), in their study evaluating the relationship between electronic mail and marketing, investigated which types of e-mails are of more interest. It was observed that the interest rate in e-mails related to information society-technologies, health, tourism-travel was high, while the interest in emails related to food-nutrition and art was at a medium level. As for the attitude towards e-mails with advertising content, they found that the ability to attract attention is high, and the ability to arouse interest, create desire and cause purchase is at a medium level. Therefore, it can be stated that this data is a finding that supports that an e-mail content that is easy to interact and effective for us and whose content is supported by visuals is very valuable for e-mail marketing. In addition, especially for small and medium-sized companies, the email marketing process is carried out with more personal efforts and without large budgets. For this reason, it is important to share free e-mail marketing tools that are accepted in the market. Best free e-mail marketing tools can be listed as follows; Mailchimp, AWeber, SendinBlue, Constant Contact, ManyContacts, Sender, Emma. In addition to free ones, professional services are as follows; Hubspot, Zoho Campaigns, Mailchimp, Constant Contact (free), SendinBlue (free), Campaign Monitor, GetResponse, Omnisend, MailerLite, Sender (free), Campaigner, SendPulse, AWeber, ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, Drip, Mailjet, iContact, Emma (free) (Haileyesus, 2021).
Conclusion and Suggestions
In this chapter, e-mail marketing, which is one of the most established and oldest digital marketing activities, is evaluated in many different aspects. What kind of discussions the reader has made about e-mail marketing in the literature has been evaluated with the characteristics of countries, institutions and researchers. The prominent researches, prominent journals and articles on e-mail marketing over the years are explained in the study. Information has also been provided on the trending topics in e-mail marketing over the years. In the study, not only an article or review type document, but also an evaluation of all publications obtained in the Web of Science search was presented. When the titles of the congresses for the papers were evaluated in the evaluation, it was seen that there were no congresses concentrated in a specific field. It has been seen here that discussions on e-mail marketing that concern many research areas have been carried out in the literature. It has been observed that e-mail marketing has less place in the literature compared to digital marketing tools. Although there is no accumulation on a specific institution or researcher, the USA is by far the leading country in terms of publications produced. In the 2000s, internet marketing, viral marketing, outsourcing, internet, cluster analysis, system dynamics, spam and data mining came to the fore. In recent years (e-mail marketing campaigns, academic libraries, open rate, customer engagement, newsletters, interactivity, search engine optimization, digital marketing, personalization, machine learning, social media have been studied intensively. In the literature study, it was seen that issues such as mail sending frequency, mail content, and mail title were very prominent. However, there is no study that informs about the server preference or whether the IP address of the server is on the blacklist, whether a malicious mail has been sent from a website hosted on this server or in some way. However, this situation is at the beginning of the work and may have an impact that has the potential to affect the entire digital marketing strategy of the people who do e-mail marketing and may cause irreversible damage and damage the corporate image. Mail marketing is evaluated in detail in the section, from a sample code block and content preparation and bulk mailing services to the service on bulk mailing services. Efforts have been made to be a comprehensive study on email marketing.