Email direct marketing is a means of selling or promoting a product or service, for example: an email announcement about a members-only price, a limited-time offer, or an upcoming event. Lyris ListManager makes sending email announcements quick and easy. With its extremely fast messaging speeds and broad feature set, ListManager is ideal for direct email marketing, newsletters, and online discussion groups. [ VIEW PRICES | LEARN MORE ] Why market via email? Traditional direct marketing is expensive, and typically returns a 1-3% response rate. It's also fairly difficult to track results; who really knows how many of your recipients simply threw away your mailing without looking at it? Email direct marketing, in contrast, costs pennies per name. Targeted email messages often deliver responses (in terms of click-through links) of 5-15%. Today's Internet technology makes it possible to monitor online responses to your email in real-time. How to manage an email campaign As an example scenario, consider an airline that wants to send a weekly message to millions of customers. How can the airline approach its email marketing campaign? We recommend these guidelines: Define objectives: promote advance ticket sales, increase frequent flyer members, etc. Determine criteria for measuring success: number of tickets sold, new frequent flyer memberships, etc. Select highly reliable email list management software or list hosting service; otherwise, customer relations may suffer. We suggest ListManager software for email campaigns, or ListHosting services for outsourced email lists. Confirm member subscriptions with a double opt-in process. Enable list members to subscribe and unsubscribe from the list very easily (again, in order to maintain excellent customer relations and to avoid appearing like spam). Insert "hotlinks" or other dynamic elements into each email message that facilitate action: purchasing tickets, signing up for a frequent flyer account, etc. Watch membership activity carefully. In particular, look for connections between unsubscribes and mailing frequency; sending direct marketing messages too frequently can cause a decline in membership. Want to learn more? Read all about opt-in email.