|
Email has emerged as a cost-effective, efficient, real-time marketing channel defiantly challenging the traditional methods of customer contact. No other medium - offline or online - provides Marketers with such a direct, personal, interactive and measurable customer communication capability, and Marketers are increasingly demanding e-execution capability within their marketing toolkit.
Putting Deliverability into Perspective
As with any new channel, email marketing brings with it its own set of potential pitfalls and commercial challenges. One of this year's hot topics in email marketing is deliverability. Vendors are promoting new delivery capabilities, and you can read a different article about it daily. Given that 88% of all email is delivered successfully, the ability to reach that remaining 12% is definitely an opportunity. However, when put into perspective, it becomes clear that email marketing is no longer about getting your email to consumer inboxes - it is about keeping it there. Consumers respond to about one in ten emails they receive each day. They are also deciding which email stays in their inbox and what gets filtered or unsubscribed. Organizations that succeed in establishing and maintaining customer relationships using email will have a competitive advantage.
Current Email Marketing Practices
The good news is that few of your competitors have changed their email marketing practices in the past five years. They still send non-personalized, bulk email. Studies vary, but it appears that only two out of ten do even basic personalization, such as salutation. Less than one out of ten has implemented sophisticated programs leveraging CRM data and dynamic content.
So, while every marketer desires to send relevant and timely email, most lack solutions that make doing this practical. Email marketing practices and platforms need to evolve from campaign-centric to customer-centric.
Although not an exhaustive list, the steps detailed in this paper are crucial to the success of your email marketing campaigns.
10 Steps to Effective Email Marketing
1. Identify yourself
Clearly identify yourself by knowing your customer better. With ëphishing' attacks on the rise, consumers can't assume the email they get from you is in fact you, despite what the ëfrom' and ësubject' lines say. You can ask recipients, for example, to add your email address to their address book to prevent 'over-zealous' spam filters preventing your email from being delivered. In addition, ensuring that you address your customers by their name in the email will help them to realise your email is legitimate - 'Dear Customer' is likely to look like an attempt at 'phishing'. Remember, spammers won't send personalized content, as their business model doesn't support the cost of implementing database marketing methods.
2. Be relevant
Ensure your email content is personalized and relevant so your readers will want to receive your emails and will look forward to reading the content. It's also important to keep in mind that relevance is in the eye of the customer, so always strive to send them content and information that is of interest to them, not simply what you want to tell them! In return you will get increased revenue and profit as a reward. Remember, spammers won't send personalized content, as their business model doesn't support the cost of implementing database marketing methods. Always consider if the subject of your email is going to be pertinent to the recipient - don't risk frustrating your valuable customers by blindly sending them every single campaign you run.
3. Select your vendor wisely
Beware of cheap email products. It is easy to use an email blaster product, the market is full of them and you can't beat the price. Unfortunately, many of them lack even basic opt-out ability and provide marketers with minimal visibility of delivery rates, frequency control and other advanced features that enable organizations to implement responsible email practices.
4. Integrate online and offline channels
Multi-channel programs are a process, not an event. We will have succeeded when email becomes part of an integrated multi-channel dialogue we have with customers. Use offline communications to make consumers aware of your online practices and the benefits of signing up. Don't speak to your customers just using email. Get to know them better than that and watch your conversations increase and opt-outs drop...
|
