Today more than 30 billion emails are sent each day. However, 90% of database and direct marketers are not leveraging this popular marketing channel. Why? Is it because email doesn't have a great ROI? No, actually the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) recently released a study identifying email as having the best ROI of any channel.
Is it too expensive? Hardly, the biggest fans of email marketing are interactive and ecommerce companies that use it because of its cost-effectiveness versus traditional channels. Is the audience to small to consider? I don't think so...remember that 30 billion number. Why are 9 out of 10 database and direct marketing companies dragging their feet on email marketing? I believe it is because email marketing service providers have yet to impress database and direct marketers with innovative applications, capable of leveraging database and direct marketing best practices and methods.
Database and direct marketers understand the value of customer relationship, of course they invented the term as we know it today. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications are the result of the relentless pursuit of database and direct marketers to fully understand their markets, customers, and prospects. CRM applications introduced specialized database models targeted at supporting front office activities.
Even though our ERP vendor told us to wait for their next release that would include CRM features, we all learned that ERP was designed for the back office. Entirely new applications were needed to meet front office requirements and workflow.
Like CRM applications, Email Relationship Management (ERM) applications start with a specialized database model to meet the unique requirements and workflow of managing email activities across the enterprise. This data model enables real-time email creation and deployment, campaign personalization, data-driven variable content, complex analytics and reporting, demographic segmenting and other common database and direct marketing methods. This highly transactional data model also takes into consideration email specific features, such as, digital asset management, unsubscribe handling and email template creation. These Features demand a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) but are not part of any existing CRM data model.
The Internet has blurred the line between front office and back office. In most companies if you ask the CMO and the CIO, who's in charge of the website?, you get the nod from both. And they are both probably correct with each one having different responsibilities. Email Relationship Management platforms are designed for the new connected world the Internet (and XML Web Services) has created providing both back office and front office benefits.
For example, ERM platforms include high performance Mail Transfer Agents (MTA's) to deploy email faster, RDBMS, website integration, and system administration tools for the back office. It also has expert interfaces and wizards that empower the front office to easily manage email marketing campaigns and other front office email activities.
ERM vs. Email Marketing Service Providers While the current Email Marketing Service Providers may claim to have some or all of the capabilities mentioned above, the reality is that most don't. Instead, they package their offerings to include professional services, account representatives, creative resources, a DBA, and an elephant in an attempt to deliver on the solution they sold you. Email industry analysts have even created a category of email marketing vendors called Collaborative Application Service Providers (ASPs). Huh? Isn't that like saying you don't offer all the services of an agency and don't have a technology mature enough to call a product?
Sophisticated database and direct marketers are not impressed with the upload a list and blast workflow. Yes, of course they can do more than upload a list and blast. In addition, other front office departments want to incorporate email functionality. Sales, contact centers, and websites can benefit greatly from email. The problem is that these Email Marketing Service Providers have solutions designed solely for email campaign marketing. That is what they were built for upload list and blast. Repeat. These applications use list based architectures versus having a true RDBMS. This is a fundamental difference in the current Email Marketing Service Provider offerings contrasted with the new ERM platforms. Database and direct marketers need the ability to create a segment across an entire database, such as, using a query that can include email actions, such as opt-in, and demographic data, such as income.
