Tvmama

1 Comment Written by Atila on October 25, 2008 – 5:29 am

There are three main groups of online advertising: email, fax and the World Wide Web.

E-mail advertising. E-mail is capable of reaching addresses directly and of sending messages to a multitude of addresses simultaneously. It is, technically, very cheap, ie the cost of a quick phone call if it goes down the line.

Few major advertisers use e-mail for broadscale advertising purposes, especially in the consumer goods field. But it does have a number of uses, as e-mail audiences continually discover:

1. For local advertisers: providers of local services frequently e-mail key prospects within their immediate localities. This is often preceded by a telephone calling programme to build up a local email address list. Such users include restaurants, sandwich bars, travel agents, concert and theatre promoters or estate agents, etc.

2. For providers of computer services: e-mail addresses by definition go to computer users. An e-mail address list can thus target the core market for such services.

3. For specialised business-to-business products: where the market base is relatively restricted, an e-mail address list can provide fast and effective coverage. Bearing in mind however the twin problems of lack of a visual element (tying up a PC with a large graphics file is not calculated to win friends) and restrictions on length – unsolicited e-mails should be short, sharp and to the point.

4. For existing customers: an e-mail database can be simply built up for existing customers, and this is probably the main use of e-mail contact for most commercial organisations. The e-mail message shares the same characteristics as other direct response communication. The text should be clear, simple and possess an appeal to the addressee who has not asked for the message and may well not want to read it.

The key element here is the possession of a satisfactory database. There are now various mail houses who will supply such databases, across a number of markets. However, many organisations prefer to build up their own address list, which they can compile off their business files supplemented by telephone calling.

Fax advertising: there is now easy access to fax addresses, so that a standard fax may be sent out to a variety of recipients – not simultaneously but sequentially.

Here again costs are relatively low, ie the price of a compacted telephone call.