The Email Wars | Things I Now Know

Things I Now Know

Nov 06 2008

What have I learned so far on this week’s trip to London? I am amazingly surprised how similar and how different we are at every turn. Now I am not speaking as a people but as a marketing and email marketing society.

I had a chance to keynote the DMA UK Email Marketing event with local ESP celebrities like Dela Quist from Alcheme Workx, Kath Pay, Denise Cox, and Euro-Celeb-Email-Rockstar-friend Tamara Geihen from Ogilvy Belgium/BeRelevant. Many ideas were shared, concepts floated, statements made, arguments had (I love a good fight) , bread broken, wine shared and as only fitting ending the night in a corner pub in London continuing the conversations.

SHOCKER? When I surveyed the full room of people there to learn about email marketing, I asked how many of them were responsible for email marketing as a primary role. NONE. Not one of the people in the room had a role where email was their only role. Some major brands and corporations there. Not really shocking but man it made me sad. As the prime revenue driver for many of them, not one focuses on it exclusively. Sad.

Now what did I learn? Well here is what I NOW know:

The European ESP Market is just as scattered and fragmented as the US Market.

There are a few top notch players that are from Europe and the UK, but many of the US players are trying to make their plays here by presenting themselves are totally different types of companies and services. In the US it might be a CRM/Data role – while in the UK they lead with strategy and creative services. Demands are different in each market I assume.

Agencies Rule. Not that I ever disrespect an agency, as we are one, but the agency owns the client. The ESP is at the mercy of most agencies and very few companies and brands have direct relationships. Those that do are unique.

There is a great opportunity for partnership and expansion in the UK if you make the right choices in partners and brands. Trust is everything when you could share works across the oceans. Interview your partners face to face.

Most importantly the challenges facing US email marketers are the same ones facing those in the UK and Europe. So rest assured things are all relevant, they just sometimes sound different.

One Response

1
Matthew Kelleher says:
November 7th, 2008 at 1:17 am
Interesting post, and fascinating view on how the US market sees the UK. But can I make some points?

The UK DMA has a very insignificant role in online or email marketing in the UK and I am not at all surprised by the lack of email marketers in the audience. At RedEye we initially perceived email marketing to be a significant bridge between the DM and online, but it continues not to materialise. As a founder member of the UK DMA Email Council, it troubles me that this is the case but I have become resigned to it.

I don’t agree with the picture you paint of the UK market however (ignoring the European space, but my knowledge of the French and German market in particular does not lead me to see it any differently). Buyers, in email and web analytics, have two choices… large American organisation (‘Gorillas’ as I have heard them affectionately refered to!), all software and bells and whistles, competing with smaller, specialist, value led local vendors unable to scale to a US level or to reduce prices to such a great degree. The fact that these US outposts tend to ‘market’ themselves on “strategy and creative services” is a thin veneer that allows them to pitch on a competitive basis when required. The strength of the US gorillas will always be in software, ASP, enterprise tools. And that is not a bad thing, but it does make for a very competitive space.

Bring on the email war!!

Matthew Kelleher
Commerical Director
RedEye
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Thank you for your comments Matthew. I agree that the US large providers focus on strength and technology as opposed to strategy and services. There are a few agencies like ours that have crossed this hybrid years ago and we are seeing many of them try to use Europe as a place to test if they can do this, while in the US still talking about the idea of having a strategic consulting and true creative services team in place.

I can tell you as I know people at most of them, that when they sell in consulting and services that they are selling 1-4 people max on their team who do not have experience in too many verticals.

I welcome the war and am excited to see so much passion from you in your post. I will check your site out to see the kinds of work you do. Please if you could also forward me good creative examples of emails you think are well done in the UK, send them to dylan (AT) eROI Dot Com.

Thanks