To help you better understand the world of email marketing, we assembled a list of email terms you need to know. In Part 1, we will highlight marketing-specific terms, whereas in the next part, we will focus on the technical terms.
Email newsletter ads or sponsorships – Buying ad space in an email newsletter or sponsoring a specific article or series of articles. Advertisers pay to have their ad (text, HTML or both, depending on the publication) inserted into the body of the email. Email newsletter ads and sponsorships allow advertisers to reach a targeted audience and drive traffic to a website, store or office, entice sign-ups to a newsletter or promote sales of a product or service.
Permission-based email – Email sent to recipients who have opted in or subscribed to receive email communications from a particular company, website or individual. Permission is an absolute prerequisite for legitimate and profitable email marketing. Every company should have a permission-based program.
Viral marketing – A type of marketing that is carried out voluntarily by a company’s customers. It is often referred to as word-of-mouth advertising. Email has made this type of marketing very prevalent. Tools such as “send this page, article or website to a friend” encourage people to refer or recommend your company product, service or a specific offer to others.In addition, there are strategies where you can induce and support your own online viral campaigns.
Targeting – Selecting a target audience or group of individuals likely to be interested in a certain product or service. Targeting is very important for an email marketer because targeted and relevant email campaigns yield a higher response and result in fewer unsubscribes. Make sure your conventional and email targets are compatible.
House list (retention list) - A permission-based list that you’ve built yourself. Use it to market, cross-sell and up-sell, and to establish a relationship with customers over time.Your house list is one of your more valuable assets because it is seven times less expensive to market to an existing customer than it is to acquire a new one. Use every opportunity to add to it and use it.
Rental list (or acquisition list) – A list of prospects or a targeted group of recipients who have opted in to receive more information about certain subjects.Using permission-based rental lists, marketers can send email messages to audiences targeted by interest category, profession, demographic information and more. Renting a list can cost between 10 cents and 80 cents per name. Be sure your rental list is a certified, permission-based opt-in list. Permission-based lists are rented, not sold. Don’t be fooled by a list offer that sounds too good to be true. Save the $19.95 and buy yourself a George Foreman Grill instead. Unlike the cheap list, the grill is worth the money.
CPM (cost-per-thousand) – In email marketing, CPM commonly refers to the cost per thousand names on a given rental list. For example, a rental list priced at $250 CPM would mean that the list owner charges 25 cents per email address.
Open rate – The percentage of emails opened in any given email marketing campaign, or the percentage opened of the total number of emails sent.
Email blocking – Email blocking typically refers to blocking by ISPs. Emails that are blocked are not processed through the ISP and are essentially prevented from reaching their addressed destination. ISPs actively block email coming from suspected spammers.
