Reaching Smokers via Email Blasts - Cost-Effective Blast to the Future

Audience: Anyone working in tobacco control can gain knowledge and benefit, particularly those interested in low-cost access to smokers to encourage entrée into cessation programs.  Those working in media roles will learn about a low-cost way to reach smokers directly without wasting very limited resources in broad-range advertising.

Key Points: Increasing outreach by 72% over a one-year period to reach hard to reach smokers; designing ads to motivate smokers to seek treatment services; monitoring and evaluating limited media dollars; direct marketing effectiveness and increased response with email blasts at 4 intervals over one year.   

Educational Experience: Discussion will include designing ads for your targeted email audience, technical aspects of purchasing email lists, costs, and how to link from email blast to click to website for cessation information and accessing web hits and analytics for evaluation. Email Ads used will be available.

Benefits: With reduced media dollars available and technology more user friendly and widely available to our targeted populations, its prudent to invest dollars wisely to reach targeted audiences directly instead of diffused broad advertising of the past (TV, radio, print, outdoor).  On a shoe-string budget, we were able to send direct ads to our audience at 7 cents each and increase website hits by 80% in one year.