Week 4 -- MKT

Common Bond

Affiliation

Student’s Name

Companies have been relying on email marketing for a long time when it comes to creating awareness of their products and services. Email marketing has been highly successful. However, there are some aspects that organizations that wish to utilize the marketing technique must put into consideration before attempting to utilize it. Compilation of the different emails to send the advertisements to is the initial step in the development of an email marketing strategy. Some of the ways to gather these addresses are by requesting them directly from the potential customers as well as buying them from other organizations. Once a company has gathered the addresses, what follows is the composition of the email. The composition must be done in the most suitable and simple way. Effective and appropriate content enhances the chances of a client response. Besides, when sending the email, it is also pertinent to ensure that the email lands in the right folder for the recipient to see it.

Common Bond is one of the companies that have adopted email marketing strategy. The firm found it favorable because it could easily reach its target audience. The firm targeted college going students particularly those who were pursuing their MBA. The company’s marketing strategy focused on the particular target market for different reasons. One of the reasons for the decision to select a specific audience was to effectively handle customers’ responses. Effective communication is one of the aspects of a good customer service. The efficient management of responses from the customers enhances customer loyalty. Besides, focusing on a specific target made it easy for the company to thoroughly screen applicants. Concentrating on the targeted audience enabled Common Bond to build trust in the loan applicants, an effort that yielded good results. Through this strategy, the company attracted and retained many customers, a factor that contributed to its growth. The growth allowed the company to expand its client size from students undertaking MBA programs to undergraduates and also expanded to clients in different institutions of learning.

Preplanning is essential in email marketing. The process of preplanning entails deciding on the information to include in the advertisements. This is basically the creation of the content. A thorough knowledge of the target audience helps in the tailoring of the content. Lack of proper preplanning is not only costly in terms of finances but also time-wise. This is because if promotions are not done properly they will have to be repeated so as to attract the customers. The double work is also tiresome.

A celebration of success is something that every company looks forward to. The common Bond firm is one of those organizations that is celebrating the success of its email marketing. However, it ought to put in place the appropriate techniques so as to sustain this success. One of these techniques is to establish the factors that have led to the success. Besides, the company also must understand what aspects it includes in the advertisements appeal to the customers. In order to get some of this information, the company can utilize a survey through which it can get feedback from the target audience. The audience will itself help in identifying what it likes most about not only the services and products offered but also about the firm as a whole. The survey could also include questions on what the customers dislike about the services and also what steps they perceive can be done to improve these areas.

The marketing team is charged with the greatest responsibility of ensuring the success of the organization’s marketing efforts. Introduction of quarterly surveys will play a big role in involving the customers. The effort will be aimed at getting frequent feedback from the customers so as to identify what areas it can change to improve its services. Customers’ participation is important in determining the quality of services clients’ receive. A close monitoring of open rates on a quarterly basis will inform of the interests of the customers. This will offer a platform for comparison between the proposed quarterly surveys and the three months looking forward schedule.

Moreover, the company should also consider developing a promotion that includes a number of products and services instead of utilizing a product/service-specific email advertisements. An inclusive advertisement will minimize the number of emails that end up in the spam folder. Some customers will simply delete any emails that they consider spam. When many advertisements are spammed or deleted, the company incurs losses because it has already spent resources in developing these adverts.

In addition, Common Bond must ensure that it maintains an active connection with its potential customers. The strategy will help in learning the needs and wants of the clients and the same their preferences. The knowledge will be useful in designing products and services that will satisfy these needs and preferences. It will also be possible to design advertisements that appeal to the clients. Customers are offended by organizations that flood their email accounts with uninteresting messages. Customers usually trust organizations that maintain an active communication channel.

I hold a strong opinion that Common Bond can benefit immensely from the email marketing strategy. It should, therefore, continue utilizing it and research on it to establish any new features it can use to make it more successful. The firm should invest finances in both the creation of the promotional advertisements and also on talented marketing personalities to maintain the effectiveness of the strategy. It is also paramount to track the changes in the interests of the customers so as to make sure that the services rendered and products offered to meet their needs. Since the majority of the target market utilize social media, Common Bond could also integrate various social media platforms to its marketing technique. Besides, although there are major developments in communication, there are some customers who are conservative. The implication of this is that they will opt to utilize the traditional media (emails) even when the firm begins using social media platforms. Some of them will prefer face to face contact with the marketing team. An organization should cater for individual differences by providing information through different platforms that the customers are comfortable with.

References

Larson, J., & Draper, S. (). Internet Marketing Essentials [University of Phoenix Custom Edition

eBook]. : University Of Phoenix. Retrieved from University Of Phoenix, MKT/440 website.

http://myresource.phoenix.edu/secure/resource/MKT440r3/MKT440_r3_common_bond_email_case_study_Week4 .