Shumskaya A. U., Kasian S. Y., Reutskova O. M.

Oles Honchar Dnipropetrovsk National University

E-MAIL MARKETING IN THE COMPLEX OF COMPANY MARKET COMMUNICATIONS

One of the most effective means of organizing marketing communications on the Internet is e-mail. A letter sent out via the Internet within several minutes reaches an adressee destination on the other side of the world, which is one of the main advantages of conventional mail. In addition, the cost of such a transfer is minimal. Therefore, in e-mail, many companies is becoming an indispensable tool of a business conduct.

Currently, millions of people use e-mail as the main method of communication. In particular, it is widely used in business and marketing. E-mail can be used for various purposes – to correspond with business partners, information support, promotion of goods and services.

Let’s consider the basic ways of e-mail application as a marketing tool. E-mail is actively used for promotional purposes. The means of advertising via e-mail are:

- mailing of promotional offers, without a confirmation of adressee ("spam");

- mailing of promotional offers under the direct confirmation of an addressee («opt-in marketing");

- Commercials in electronic magazines sent by e-mail.

At present, many advertisers as a result of their inexperience or purposefully abuse sending promotional e-mail messages. They send promotional material without a direct confirmation of Internet users. As a result, the latter has to spend time cleaning their mailboxes from unwanted advertising. This method of advertising is called spam.

Despite this, even if being informed about enormous harm done to this image, many firms are actively using spam, as they are guided by the principle of commercial efficiency: at relatively low cost companies mail from several hundred thousand to several million of promotional emails. Mass mailing can dramatically increase the likelihood of getting advertising to those adressees who need this product at the moment and have not developed the habit to delete advertising messages.

The alternative to spam is "opt-in marketing": Internet users subscribe and give confirmation to receive promotional information about certain products and services. This method of advertising is effective enough, because here there is a clear interest of consumers to receive promotional information. In the developed economies, there are agencies that organize direct mail advertising to consumers who wish to receive promotional information about a specific product range. In Ukraine, many companies own promotional mailing, inviting Internet users to subscribe to them.

Commercials in case of electronic mailings. Another way of advertisement via  e-mail – is commercials (banners, text, text and graphic blocks) inside the electronic journals sent by e-mail. There are mailing covering certain topics of interest for Internet users. Users subscribe to them in order to receive useful informational materials by    e-mail. Such mailing is sometimes called electronic journals. Usually there is some space for advertising inside the magazines.

Thus, e-mail will require additional research in the organization of marketing activities. Today, many companies are using a small part of the channel capacity to influence consumers, often limited by only advertising mailing without confirmation of an adressee (spam), which causes damage to the company image and creates a negative attitude of Internet users to advertising by e-mail. At the same time, a careful application of the tool of marketing communications can form a circle of loyal customers and boost business efficiency.