Proof the relationship matters
Latest posts | Feed | By Mark Brownlow on February 27, 2008
A recent aside on the future of email marketing suggested the one certainty was the growing importance of the sender-recipient relationship in driving email success.With impeccable timing, a survey of consumers delivers some hard numbers to support this contention.
Surveys like this always have the problem that what people say they do and what they actually do are not the same.
But ignoring that for the moment, the results show, for example, that the better they know you, the more emails they'll tolerate. And the more likely they are to open those emails.
Recognition alone is of course useless unless there is a positive association with your name, brand and previous emails. The relationship is key.
While that all sounds self-explanatory and elicits "yeah, yeah" comments from hard-nosed marketing practitioners, think on it a minute.
Have you ever cut corners on things like permission on the assumption that it's "easier to ask for forgiveness"?
Have you ever looked back over your emails from the perspective of a customer and asked where you might improve the value you send?
Have you ever wondered why average open rates tend to be around 20% and most clickthrough rates well under 10%? However you measure these things, it's clear there's an awful lot of room for improvement.
Email marketing has done well for a long time because you could run a mediocre or self-centered program and get away with it.
But as time passes, the hurdles that ISPs and web services place between your email and the inbox of your recipient are increasingly based on signals from the recipient regarding the value and desirability of your emails.
Equally, as recipients grow more discerning and pressed for time, tolerance for mediocrity drops.
A double whammy. The quality bar is rising, and those that fail to meet the required standards risk not only a lack of response, but tougher penalties in terms of delivery blocks.
We have been warned.
Tags: email marketing, email relationships, email deliverability
[This post brought to you by Campaigner Email Marketing]
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