Targeting and personalization are the keys to keeping the recipients attention, he concludes. Jennifer Krane is vice president of business media for Engage Inc., a provider of interactive media and enterprise marketing software. She says newsletters can work wonders for both sites and advertisers. This is particularly true for sites that target precise audiences as these users are typically looking for information on a specific product or service, she says. In addition, advertisers know they re getting highly targeted, pre-qualified ad space since the users have already said they would like to receive the appropriate information.
Marketers therefore have the opportunity to place an ad among content of interest to users.
However, because of high demand for the extremely targeted ad space, e-mail newsletter distributors are charging higher prices. Most importantly, the technology must not intimidate users. But the bad news is there s also spam infecting the mind of the user into a predisposition against perceived unsolicited e-mail. Since only about one in ten are curious enough to bother reading a spam message, according to research analysis firm eMarketer, this is a problem companies can t afford to ignore. Historically, businesses have made the mistake of bombarding customers with information and sales pieces, simply because tracking technology has made it possible to collect names for a list.