Email marketing has grown exponentially over the last couple of years and as a result, it has become an effective marketing medium. Its immediacy, both when setting up and sending out a campaign, as well as response from recipients, makes email five times more effective than direct mail and 20 times more effective than banner adverts placed on Web-sites, according to research conducted by eMarketer.

Email is a cheaper medium with which to communicate to customers, reducing communication costs by between 40 and 65%.

Outsourced email marketing has the advantage of being highly measurable and trackable, so a company could track which of its customers are clicking on various URLs and so by inference, that customer knows what information is of interest and is being read. Real-time reporting is available online, giving information such as: bounces, who has opened the email (only possible if the recipient is online and reading an HTML version), as well as forward rates.

eMessageX.com uses email as the base platform for communication, off which other campaigns can be launched, information can be sent, surveys conducted and RSVPs to events can easily be collated through an automated medium.

The Internet has become a directory of information and if you don’t have a presence, you will be forgotten when a potential client is looking for your services.

Besides making a good impression and representing your brand online, your web-site should be a repository of information, allowing anyone to find out what you do and how you do it, have access to more information and a clear way of contacting relevant people within organizations. Of course depending on your company’s focus, your web-site can include intelligence factors, such as online shopping, flash animation, interactivity such as in-depth search facilities and polls.

When used in conjunction with email, the two online mediums work as a push-pull mechanism, to draw people to your web-site. The email is pushed out with the relevant information to your customers and when a link is placed in the email, it should draw that recipient back to your web-site or landing pages where further information is available.

eMessageX.com designs static web-sites, which act as a functional repository for information, allowing companies to have a presence on the Internet. eMessageX.com also designs and lays out landing pages, which act as an intermediary step for recipients to read up on more information, from URLs placed in each email. Landing pages are also used to confirm subscription, show results from polls, as well as confirm RSVPs to events.

SMS can act as an effective medium for reminders, campaign updates and newsflash information, as long as the company has permission from its customer database to send SMSes, as this medium for communication is extremely personal and could lead to irritation from recipients if they haven’t given permission for SMSes to be sent to them.

SMSes can be customized, where the name, individual company and unique recipient information can be included in the message.

Currently the lion’s share of cell phones only allow for 160 characters in a single message, so the copy written must be succinct, taking into consideration the longest name, and getting an effective message across to each recipient.

eMessageX.com’s SMS solution also allows for recipients to reply to the message, giving companies feedback on campaigns, allowing for companies to update their databases with relevant information from their customer base, as well as allowing for recipients to enter competitions over SMS. SMS as a medium can also be used effectively for promotional offers and competitions.