1.1 Introduction
Email and Newsletters is by far the most popular way for businesses to stay in touch with existing customers and new prospective customers. By providing valuable information and updates based on their interests, email can help build a relationship between the organization and the customer. Chaffey et al. (2000) simply define internet marketing as "the application of the internet and related digital technologies to achieve marketing objectives". This definition is a simple definition which, unlike the following ones, does not touch the important aspect of customer relationship. According to (Kotler & Armstrong, 2012: 508; Kotler et al., 2010: 493) Online marketing consists of measures and activities to promote products and services and build relationships with customers over the Internet. Burrett (2008) understands online marketing as carefully targeting users and getting them to interact with you while they‘re engaged with the most personal, intimate medium ever invented.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
The Internet has its origins in cold war and technological rivalry between USSR and US. In fact "while the World Wide Web was created in 1991, its origin dates back to 1957 when the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik I satellite" (Dickey and Lewis, 2011: 2). US reacted with establishment a department of Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) which launched in 1960s ARPANET, an experimental project of computer networks from which what we now know as internet developed. Since then internet contributed to science incredibly and "by the late 1980s the internet was being used by many government and business institutions" (Ferguson, 2008: 69). The Internet is now the way to get information. In the US, 170 million people, 60% of the total population, are online. One hundred and forty seven million people use email daily. Major advertising campaigns now include big investments in newsletter and email campaigns.
Email marketing has grown in popularity because it produces results. While in the late 90’s and into 2000 email marketing was new, the accessibility of email now means that marketers must work hard to cut through the clutter. In the past, permission was a nice to have. Now permission is a must have. Ultimately, a company must put more thought into email communications – from the information gathered up front to the actual messages sent. Whether you are new to email marketing or are a seasoned professional, a strategy and a roadmap prove critical for email marketing just like they do for public relations, advertising, etc.
No doubt you have done research on the web on the subject of email marketing. What seems to be lacking as a resource for professionals like yourself is an action plan. This research is created with the intention of saving you time by pointing out the main elements of a good email marketing strategy and letting you fill in the blanks. Armed with this information you should be able to provide management, partners, and peers with solid reasons why your organization should include email marketing as a way to reach business objectives. Business owners since the inception of email marketing and newsletter sign up can now captures prospects that may not be ready to take other actions. By creating a newsletter or other communication for this audience, you can begin to build a relationship with them that can lead to sales or other desired action in the future. Without this regular communication, the contact could easily forget about your organization the minute they exit the website. Customer retention is very key for businesses to succeed, implementing a newsletter application and email marketing system will increase the desired action of customers, and the process can include a welcome email that invites them to stay in touch with your company.
1.3 Statement of Problem
Big companies and brands before now do have a comprehensive list of customers without ways to send all the email list probably in large numbers emails for new products, awareness or promo which they are business are offering, which reduces the relationship between business owners and customers, and drop in sales and most times customers tend to forget the businesses exist, with a mailing and newsletter system, companies can send thousands of emails to existing customers and prospective customers with just a click.
One of the major problems Business Marketing face in their campaigns is still the use of primitive promotions channels such as press, brochure, catalogue, TV, cell phone, etc, and several offline channels which lacks a comprehensive, harmonizing marketing framework. In this project work, we present a new solution for businesses to promote their business online to reach a wider audience.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of the study is to Design and Implement a Newsletter Application/Email Marketing System. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to design and develop an application software that will:
- Enable companies reinforce brand with increase communication between customers and businesses through email and Newsletter marketing.
- Increase the ability to communicate with customers/ prospects based on past encounter with the brand.
- Give feedback from tracking reports and provide insight for companies to build on.
- Drive traffic to companies’ website.
1.5 Significance of Study
This study will be of immense benefit to researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.6 Scope of the Study
The study focuses on the Design and Implementation of a Newsletter Application/Email Marketing System. The scope of this research is to explore an automated way through which newsletter can be sent easily in large quality with just a click. The system will help send multiple emails to email account and aid businesses communicate with customers seamlessly.
1.7 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Establishment Policies: Establishment policies posed a serious limitation as most staffs are not ready to release information needed for this project work. There were lots of information needed from the staffs of this institution to enhance the study which took them time to release or they did not release at all for security purposes, hence the scope was reduced.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).
1.8 Definition of Terms
- Internet: The Internet is a global wide area network that connects computer systems across the world.
- Business: A business is defined as an organization or enterprising entity engaged in commercial, industrial, or professional activities.
- Virtual Store: The virtual store is an online store that displays merchandise and an order form.
- Marketing: Marketing is the process of teaching consumers why they should choose your product or service over those of your competitors, and is a form of persuasive communication.
- Promotion Channels: In marketing, promotion refers to any type of marketing communication used to inform or persuade target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or issue.
- Customer Relation: Customer relations describe the ways that a company will engage with its customers to improve the customer experience.
