Every few months, when I receive my quarterly investment statements, I am wonderstruck that very few financial institutions and Investment brokerages haven't yet seen the light about email marketing solutions. Rather than sending me reports, statements and promotions through the tried tested and terribly slow snail-mail method, I could be receiving all this information in a tightly organized, professionally packaged email, sent to me from an online, email marketing solutions.



Considering the volume of their client-base, and considering every business' need to find easy ways to save a buck, the amount of money these institutions would save on mailing costs, paper costs, and printing costs is astounding. Just stop and think about how many people these institutions can reach. Now think of the money it costs to reach them. It's astronomical.

I know that when I receive these quarterly reports, I review them , see how my investments are doing, and store away the papers, always muttering about what a hassle it is wasting time and space on filing those reports. Then, the extra promotional offers they send (the so-called 'statement stuffers'), are immediately tossed into recycling with the envelope they came in.

If I received this information from an email marketing solutions with promotions included somewhere within the body of the report, I could easily archive it on my computer, setting up a file so I can constantly take a look at it, or even track its growth in another program. Because I was anticipating the information on the reports, I am more likely see those promotional interest rates and also click on them, or even sign up for them.

So here's how you start: The first thing you have to do is collect a list of emails. There are a number of ways to do this, but one effective method is to get your customers to sign up by offering them a discount, like '5% off every order this month if you sign up for our email database.' Anyone who is satisfied with your service will want to receive the same merchandise at a lower cost, especially if it means that they will receive a 'preferred customer promotion' for doing so.

Beyond this, email marketing solutions are designed to track the "open rates" and "clicks" of the emails that are sent out, something that a paper flyer can't accomplish. What this means to these institutions is that they can easily track which of their current customers are clicking on "great mortgage rates" set within the emails, giving them an accurate picture of who is truly interested in that promotion. Now they can send out a new, mortgage-themed campaign contacting only those clients who showed interest in that topic. If there are two promotions offered, then the institution can see which promotion is more successful, and send another email marketing campaign based on that information.

It is truly astounding how much of a difference email marketing solutions can make on a financial institution's communications efforts. These companies have the potential to save millions of dollars and increase the amount of programs that their clients are signed up for. Progress of this magnitude can't stay a secret for long; somebody better tell the bank about email marketing solutions.