Should all email marketers become content publishers?

[This is an essay on thinking differently about targeting. It's long, as I need to carry you through the same thought process that I went through getting there. Not really web-friendly, but then it's good to be contrary sometimes.]

The one thing that really bugs me about email marketing is the NCTR. The No Clickthrough Rate. Benchmarks tell us CTRs are typically 7%. So the average NCTR is 93%.

93% of recipients are not clicking on an average marketing email. Think about that.

At this point we all chime in with words like targeting, relevancy, trigger email, segmentation, lifecycle campaigns...all great stuff which can lift responses 50%, double them even. Let's say you even get a threefold lift.

Now your NCTR is 79%.

Hang on, we have some fantastic targeting going on and still most people are not interested enough to click.

That bothers me. All those lost opportunities. And every non click has the potential to turn into a spam complaint.

The problem is we can target by context or behavior, but we can't easily target by state of mind.

(I love those kind of academic-sounding sentences.)

In English...we can send people an offer relevant to a past behavior (like a purchase) or what we know about a subscriber (like a declared interest), but we're still hoping that the email arrives when the recipient is in buying / downloading / reading mode. Or at least in a position to quickly switch to that mode.

And mostly they are not.

99.9% of my time online is spent working, learning and laughing. Not contemplating the particular need you want to address. Or even willing to contemplate it before your email gets shunted off the screen.

The window of opportunity for any email is actually narrow. The message can be as targeted as you like, but if I'm not in the right state of mind, it likely gets ignored. Hence high NCTR.

Instead of struggling to get email to the recipient at the right time (which you can rarely know), we want to flip the concept around.

When the subscriber does have a need we can fulfill, we want them to immediately think of us. This is a wider business goal associated with branding, loyalty, customer relationships etc.

How can email fit in?

Well, staying top of mind, loyalty, relationships...hang on, doesn't that remind you of the basic premise behind informational email newsletters?

In fact, the email newsletter approach is popular among service companies specifically because most people getting their emails are not - at that moment - ready to shell out for a professional service.

The newsletter is a statement of position, a showcase for expertise, a wave from across the road that says, "...when you do need what we offer, remember us."

If you accept the NCTR argument, then this concept deserves wider application, since most people are not ready to give the response you want at the time your email arrives. Whether you're selling consultancy or cat food.

So there's our start. You publish useful information, build a reputation and relationships, and when people are ready to buy, they go to you. Email as brand experience and brand builder.

But let's go beyond that...

Emails designed for direct responses now use a range of super tools and tactics to ensure the offer presented is as relevant as possible.

Why not apply that same ingenuity to the email newsletter concept? Why not target with content in the same way we target with offers or promotions?

Some examples of what I mean...

If I buy a digital camera from an electronic retailer, I likely get subsequent emails that feature offers on camera accessories, newer models and alternative models.

They put me in the "digital camera" segment and market accordingly. Which is right and proper and works to a degree. But we still have the NCTR problem.

What if those emails also featured (or at least linked to) targeted content, such as:

• maintenance tips for my exact camera model.
• usage tips for that exact model.
• advice on digital photography techniques (beginner tips for lower-end models, advanced tips for expensive SLRs).
• reviews of useful online tools for digital camera users.

Wouldn't that make me feel good about the retailer? Wouldn't that boost trust, loyalty and all the other things that contribute to a state of mind that says "when I buy my next camera, it's going to be here".

If I just bought Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" off a music download site, I might get a nice receipt with a sidebar along the lines of "If you liked this song, you might like Leonard Cohen, etc. etc."

Targeted cross-sell opportunities dynamically embedded through a funky (that's a technical term) transactional email system.

Which is, again, great, but...bang...the NCTR problem. I'm done with music buying this week. Or I don't actually know WHY I should spend time listening to excerpts of Cohen songs.

What if that transactional email also included content with:

• the top 5 Hallelujah covers, as voted by our visitors
• the Jeff Buckley legacy
• an interpretation of the Hallelujah lyrics

Now the BIG argument against this approach is the cost of developing all that targeted content. Especially when the benefits are likely long-term. Though we already see case studies where content, rather than sales pitches, can increase immediate responses and sales.

Well...

• a lot of content might be suited to a user generated approach. Drawing on customer reviews and submissions, for example. This might tie in to a broader Web 2.0 strategy.
• you might licence stuff from some of those specialist, even hobby, content sites that are desperate for revenue. Or reuse material from fan blogs etc. (with permission of course).
• how many hours do you spend designing the pretty creative that accompanies the promotion? What if you spent that same time crafting a useful article on the same topic?
• a lot of that content may already be in your possession: in your print newsletters, customer service documentation, manufacturer's documentation, resource pages, FAQ etc.
• you might simply link to other websites where this information is available (if you're self-assured enough)
• you can start small. Any digital camera purchaser would likely value a few short reviews of some useful online tools. Takes you two hours to write.

The real message here is that it's not about promotions versus content. It's about thinking of more ways to add value to your email program. And the value you give, you will get in return.

Now the hybrid promotion/content model is not new (see what REI do with their wool email here) and it follows a current Internet meme that we are all publishers now. It's a logical extension of much that already goes on in the more enlightened corners of the email marketing world, but I can't promise it works.

But does it make you think? Have you seen companies pursuing this approach to this level of detail? Would it work for you?

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