The new email marketing: step back from the canvas

Latest posts | Feed | By Mark Brownlow on September 16, 2008

Part 15 of an ongoing series...

[We're looking at the strategies and tactics that distinguish a smart email marketer from a bulk email marketer. See the New Email Marketing index page to access the rest of the series.]

Bullied into attending an exhibition of French [something]ism, the "aha!" moment came when a canvas full of apparently random blobs of paint morphed into a Provence garden when seen at a distance.

(Art lovers have permission to roll their eyes and go "duh!")

Many email marketers are like the myopic gallery visitor: they get too close to the canvas. They only focus on the detail. The next email. The individual blob of paint.

But the recipient of those emails also views the canvas from a distance, where each blob of paint...each email...is part of a bigger picture: the image, experience or brand projected by your organization.

So the new email marketing sees each email in three contexts.

First, it must work as a standalone message, achieving whatever goals are set for that message (driving an immediate sale, confirming an order, etc.).

This is what most of the email marketing literature focuses on.

Second, it must work as part of the total email experience you impose on recipients.

While each email is indeed an isolated experience, it's also part of a sequence of emails that gets delivered to the recipient. (And that sequence includes all the emails from your organization: marketing, transactional, personal...)

So the new email marketing considers how the design and impact of each new email is affected by what went out before. And considers how this design and impact affects what goes out in the future.

Which leads to such questions as:

Is your email output coordinated across the organization?
Are you accounting for all emails when you search for the optimal contact frequency?
Do you think only in terms of immediate response or can you use email to build towards other goals: nurturing prospects, creating long-term loyalty, building expectation, building a brand?

Third, each email must work as part of the wider brand or business. As a point of communication, interaction or information, each email influences how people regard your organization as a whole.

What good is a multi-million branding program when your email's administrative functions are a letdown?

What good is a multi-million branding program when the sender isn't clear?

What good is a multi-million branding program when your order confirmations are banal and uninspiring?

What good is a multi-million branding program when you don't transfer this brand and personality into your emails?

What good is a multi-million branding program when you only use email to offer coupons and discounts?

What good is a multi-million branding program when your local stores or offices are sending email without any guidance?

So...are you applying random blobs of paint or are you building a masterpiece?

In the words of Vincent Van Gogh, himself a dab hand with the paintbrush:

"Great things are done by a series of small things brought together."

Part 16 coming soon...

[This post brought to you by Campaigner Email Marketing]
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