Marketing Essentials 2012Chapter 8:
Communication SkillseMarketing FeatureE-Mail Marketing and Twitter
E-mail marketing is electronic mail for commercial purposes. Special discounts, coupons and other promotions; as well as any information about the company can be disseminated via e-mail. Twitter is a private company offering its subscribers the ability to write and read messages in real time. A customer can tweet a business to share a good or bad experience; a business can tweet its customers with information about new products or services. A tweet is limited to 140 characters. Messages can be received on computers or mobile phones. As an information network, Twitter has become an excellent source for customer feedback. Businesses are able to gather marketing intelligence by following customers' tweets. Customers may offer suggestions, such as new product designs, new flavors for food products, new packaging, and new advertising concepts. Innovate and Create
Ask students to list all the e-mail marketing and business "tweets" they receive. Ask students to compare and contrast e-mail marketing and Twitter. To demonstrate the differences, ask students to bring in sample e-mail messages and business "tweets" to create a bulletin board display or collage on poster board. To culminate the project, have students write a "tweet" (140 characters) to a business they frequent to share a recent experience—good or bad. Also have them create an e-mail marketing piece for a restaurant in your community. As an added bonus, have students pose as marketers that create e-mail marketing programs for businesses. Ask them to role play with a restaurant owner (you or another student) to convince the owner to begin an e-mail marketing program for its customers. Students should use the sample e-mail marketing piece in their presentation.  | 
