Four great things about email marketing that should worry you
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Thanks to the downturn, email marketing shed the specs and shook her hair loose of that old-fashioned bun. Now half the marketing world wants to dance with her.Let the bells ring out! Three cheers for email: hur-rah, hur-rah, hur...hang on.
All this loud self-congratulation may be deserved, but it has me nervously looking over my shoulder in mild consternation. As Shakespeare put it:
"Oft expectation fails and most oft there where most it promises."
Silver linings sometimes come with a cloud attached. Good news about email marketing also throws up fresh challenges to email marketers. Challenges that can go unnoticed in all the excitement. Here are four to chew on...
1. Email is still hugely popular
The big four webmail services alone account for hundreds of millions of email addresses. The Radicati Group predicts there will be 1.8 billion email users by 2012.
Email isn't dying.
Oh and "BOO" to you, email naysayers: the social networks you claim will kill email actually need and use email themselves!
But who cares if they do or don't?
Google has a postal address. Does that mean direct mailers can ignore the Internet?
Email isn't dying. But it is changing.
Different demographic groups are switching allegiances between communication channels.
Or using a mix of channels, with each channel serving a particular purpose.
Or using an inbox that's now almost as much a social network interface as a Facebook account.
Challenge: do you understand your audience's (changing) pattern of email use and adapt your campaigns accordingly?
Do you offer that audience the opportunity to choose the communication channel they prefer?
Are you exploiting synergies between email and these other channels?
2. People now spread your email messages via social networks
Gone are the days when a forwarded email was the only method to pass on your offer or information online.
Subscribers now have a host of ways to spread the word and ESPs are rushing to add appropriate "share this" tools and tracking to their feature set.
But people don't share material because they can, they do it because they want to.
You have to do more than give them the right tools and links to share your content. You have to give them something actually worth sharing.
Here's the frightening truth: most people really don't care too much for your emails. Life would go on without them.
They're not nearly as engaged with the content as you were when producing it. If you don't believe me, check your average clickthrough rate. Is it under 50%?
Challenge: what can you put in your emails that gives the subscriber value, drives positive response for your own organization and inspires people to share it with others?
(That's a big, big question...)
3. Everybody loves email marketing now
Interest in email has never been stronger: pageviews at this site in February were 50% higher than for the same period last year.
In practice, companies are looking to send more email than before. And more companies are looking to start sending email. Hmmm...hear that noise? It's all the email pounding toward your subscriber's inbox.
Jeffrey Rohrs quotes MarketingSherpa stats claiming that "72% of consumers report a noticeable increase in emails from opt-in relationships over the past few months."
Challenge: what value do you offer (value...not just relevancy) that means subscribers will fight through the morass of mediocre messages to read and respond to your emails?
4. Email marketing has a super ROI
If I had a cent each time someone quoted the US DMA's figures on email marketing ROI, I'd have about $43.52, which coincidentally is their predicted return on each $1 spent on email marketing in 2009.
Yes, it's a great number. But as others note, it's easy to get good ROI when costs are relatively low.
More to the point, this return doesn't happen automatically. Nor does it mean you should relax and enjoy the view.
Challenge: how are you planning to improve your strategy and tactics to maintain or lift responses in an overworked inbox?Standing still means going backwards.
(For inspiration, look at these examples of how segmentation strategies helped drive revenue up and/or costs down.)
Thoughts?
P.S. Thanks for all your responses on the poll about future blog content directions. I'm digesting the results and working on new articles reflecting your wishes. The above is to keep you going in the meantime...
Tags: email marketing
Permalink | March 18, 2009 | 5 comment(s) - add yours!
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5 Comments:
E-mail marketing is also an important tool when it comes to lead management. It is one of the best components of lead nurturing. That’s why business owners need to know how to effectively implement this strategy. The moment that recipients feel suspicious of your e-mails, all your correspondence may end up in Junk Mail.
By 
Perry, on
20 March, 2009
Email marketing is very important, cheap and best way to promote your product. There are chances your mails can be junk if it is not targeted audience. There are top email lists providing companies who provides various kind of email lists according demand.
By 
Roger, on
20 March, 2009
I think you are basically saying email marketing works so it is being milked for all that it is worth.
It is almost a classic tragedy of the commons as this medium gets trampled.
People must be educated that thoughtless, careless email marketing leads to bad results for the individual and for the medium.
By Neil Anuskiewicz, Business Development Director, on
23 March, 2009
Agree 100% Neil. The tragedy of the commons has always been a danger for email...now more than ever.
By , on
23 March, 2009
History shows that commons either get trampled or highly regulated if they do not regulate their own behavior.
It does not require government or governments to do this. If people get too fed up with the trampled commons, they would demand more aggressive filtering from the ISPs.
The preferred option is that email marketers do email marketing well and recognize that it is in their own interest to optimize their efforts by respecting permission, using segmenting well, and sending relevant emails.
It must be recognized that batch and blast is dead though there will be a lag until people realize that.
By Neil Anuskiewicz, Business Development Director, on
23 March, 2009
