The Email Wars

This should be a multipart post, but alas I wanted to get it all out together. Here is my take on what we need to think about in 2009.

Here is the current state of email marketing

Subscriber bases are expecting better email: Here is what this means. Your subscribers are now used to getting email from you and your brand. They are accustom to getting emails that are relevant, timely and well designed and formatted to render. SO you need to deliver that experience or lose some subscribers. Take a look at not only your campaigns from 2008 but look at your comp. Maybe it is time to refresh your email layouts and designs. 

Take some time to not only focus on the creative but look at how you are segmenting and targeting people. Stop the batch and blast (sorry to use that term) mentality that everyone gets the same sale or edition. It does not always work and you know it. If it is a time thing, start to plan out your campaigns and databases now to be ready for the new year. 

Relevancy growing more important every day in order to keep your lists converting and performing: This is talking you anyone that has opportunities to send emails that are different. Don’t be like Nordstrom and JCrew and continue to send gender irrelevant emails to me. I will not read and will unsubscribe. If you don’t have the data to make relevancy work for you try one of the following. Send out an email that asks for preferences to be updated. Simple enough. The other one, if you do not have a email platform with a CRM, is to just use links to ask them who they are. If you are in retail, use the simple link of male/female. If you are in business give them a simple link that will allow you to qualify them into the bucket you want to understand. Focus on one at first, but use these techniques over and over again until you have the data to execute relevant campaigns. 

Email marketing is becoming one of the best performing mediums out there. That’s right “becomes”. All these studies show that it is the best performing medium, but unless you are doing it right it might not be for you. You need to spend the time to get the performance out of your lists and campaigns. I can’t tell you how many times I see people just being lazy and sending out emails to everyone hoping that X percent take action. Think bigger and focus on driving results. And on that note have planned results to measure. If you have nothing to measure you are just swinging in the air. Easy to look good if you have nothing to prove your actions against.

Email Marketing teams being taxed with more work and more revenue generation: We hear about this all the time. The C-level just wants more emails out there as they see that it drives revenue. But you have limited time, resources and budgets. So what to do if you cannot add another FTE or find more internal resources? Well add someone like eROI to your team. Let some professionals audit your campaigns, help you segment and set you up for success. After you have yoru house in order you can manage it yourself and realize more work in less time.

ISPs battling ESPs and punishing them for the actions of one client. Not sure how to best approach this… but here goes. There is a constant battle between ISPs and ESPs. Now we have some friends at ISPs and talk to them regularly, but why can’t we all just be friends? What I mean by this is that we need to start working together on our client’s behalf and not always trying to fight and defend. We need to approach 2009 and beyond as better partners in this battle on spam and unsolicited emails. I mean all the better ESPs all feel the same way as you do about junk mail. And we thank you for protecting our own inboxes… see that we are on the same team. So let’s act like it in 2009. 

I feel that there exists a better way for all of the ESPs and ISPs to communicate proactively. I bet if we put it all aside for a weekend we could find a better way to work together. Are you in? We are.

Permissions becoming even more important in all of your actions: Did you email me? Then I assume that you have a permission based relationship with me. Right? If you feel that you have an old list that you can send emails to, then keep that old list just where it is. Don’t try to load it up and send to it. Instead act as if those emails are gone. Yep, you don’t have them just because they were in an old CRM or Excel file from a trade show in 2001. They are history. Instead be the bigger person and start new. Think of intuitive new programs to get permission based subscribers. If you can’t, then work with an agency like eROI to help you come up with ideas and make your lists perform.

Thinking bigger on how email and landing pages interface with other medias and offline brand marketing: You have the campaign… where is it going? If you are driving people to just another one of your pages, then you are missing the mark. Start getting focused about the exact location that you are driving them to. Take some time to create landing pages that speak to the link, the offer, the creative, the copy and more. Give me a reason once I click to become engaged to your campaign. If you do not, then you will people.

Budgets for email growing, all while expecting more from it every step of the way: And you should if you are doing it right. You should be placing more in your email marketing budget. It is no longer a secondary line item in your list for digital marketing. It should be a major driver of your online communications, community, marketing, and traffic drivers. Look how you are going to use your budget wisely and properly to drive more performance from your campaigns. If you can do this you will have a measurable result to take to your boss and show why you need to place more into this medium.

Pots of Gold and Unicorns for All.