Nevertheless, e-mail is still an opportunity—the biggest opportunity to get your messages into the hands of people who want them. According to a May 2009 study from the Radicati Group, at 1.4 billion users, e-mail is a behemoth when it comes to reach. The same study also projects that by 2013, the number of worldwide e-mail users will grow to 1.9 billion.
E-mail is also the best way to reach a captive reader. Not only has it retained utility in the face of newer technologies, e-mail has adopted many of the dynamic traits that make newer communication platforms so powerful. The following reasons dispel the rumor that e-mail is a less dynamic marketing medium.
• E-mail Can Be Location-Based
Popcorn Palace is a private company based in a small town in Illinois. It ships 27 hand-crafted, micro-batched gourmet flavors to all 50 states, and are among the 100 fastest-growing food and beverage companies.
The company’s e-newsletters have always enjoyed high subscribership, but CEO Timothy Heitmann began to wonder if there was a way to market to these subscribers in a more personal way—even though all he had was an e-mail address.
The answer was patience. Once recipients read the e-newsletter, Heitmann was able to use the tracking feature in his e-mail marketing service to pinpoint which states and towns users were in when they opened the e-mails. With the Super Bowl coming up, Heitmann could reasonably assume whether someone was a Colts or Saints fan based on their locations. He then offered targeted recipients special Super Bowl deals on popcorn packages branded with their favorite teams.
The promotion went over so well—with the sports-minded customers buying much more per order than the norm—Popcorn Palace repeated it for March Madness and is expanding its efforts to include all the sporting events it can manage. How’s that for location- and event-based marketing?
• E-mail Can Offer Real-Time Connections
Ryan O’Neill is a Realtor at RE/MAX Advantage Plus in Minnesota. The strength of O'Neill’s e-mail marketing comes from a live database constantly updated with new leads from a variety of sources.




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