e-mail marketing

Making E-mail Effective

In the mid-1990s, e-mail was first envisioned as a low-cost marketing tool. Now, with marketing budgets increasingly stressed and customer acquisition and retention critical, e-mail marketing is becoming a much stronger force.

Cost efficiency is one issue, but it’s also a question of “right time, right place” for this medium. According to a study undertaken by Merkle, a database marketing agency, 44% of consumers check their primary e-mail account more than three times daily, up 38% from 2005. In addition, 58% of respondents noted that e-mail is a great way for companies to communicate with customers.*

“E-mail is the number-one online activity performed on a daily basis; it is embedded in our culture,” asserts Gene McCubbin, President of Houston, Texas-based interactive Web marketing company Pop Labs, Inc. “People communicate more effectively and habitually with e-mail now than with their regular telephone. Thus, if done properly, e-mail marketing is perceived as a transparent, safe and welcome means of reaching people. E-mail marketing is a $3 billion industry that continues to grow and deliver a potentially fantastic ROI; it can be heavily targeted, very inexpensive and campaigns can be customized specifically to your target market demographic.”

The e-mail message should:

• reflect your brand in a consistent manner, in that it works with your direct mail programs, website content and other marketing materials;
• contain a clear call to action (“calls to action—e.g., visit your website, call or visit your store, etc.—should be positioned both graphically and within the textual content of the message,” says McCubbin. “It needs to be clear to the reader what steps need to be done next, if the message has peaked their interest. A great rule of thumb is to provide a ‘learn more’ link after each paragraph, although, generally, a clear call to action should be positioned at the top, middle and bottom of the message, which assumes a smaller screen and scrolling”); and
• include a means to track results.

In terms of message content, “remember to keep it simple: make the message concise, ensure that it’s jargon-free and use graphical bullets whenever possible, which helps in terms of impact,” McCubbin suggests. “Content truly depends on what you’re trying to accomplish,” McCubbin says. “If the intent is to acquire prospects or leads, it might be about developing further brand recognition and establishing a foothold in the end-user prospects mind. If your list includes people who are intimately familiar with your company, then the intent might be transactional, with a stronger focus on immediate sales. The intent obviously drives the content of the message.”

Graphics can be important, but your e-mail needs to be able to load without the graphics and on various non-graphically enhanced devices and browsers, especially mobile. Graphics can add interest to the e-mail by enticing the recipient, but they’re not always necessary. Sometimes, they’re not loaded by default, and may not be loaded at all in some cases.

The key to an e-mail campaign is relevance, which, states McCubbin, starts with your list and understanding who’s on it. “You want to ensure that your list of recipients is segmented and targeted specifically to your needs, which, ideally, is done by developing your own list through any number of in-house options, like point-of-sale, website-based offers or a search marketing campaign. In my experience, building your own database is preferable to buying or subscribing to blanket opt-in, e-mail marketing lists as far as overall cost-effectiveness is concerned.”

Once you’ve built a solid base, you can effectively target the content of the message to the recipient and their perceived or stated needs. Initially, your contact list should be segmented and targeted based on your recipient audience. However, once your blast is sent, you’ll be able to pull more information regarding the people on your list who respond to the message.

Bear in mind that there are many different techniques for digital marketing—e-mail, search marketing (such as YPConnect from YELLOWPAGES.COM), search engine optimization, pay-per-click and more. “The best campaigns are those that inherently work together, in unison or holistically, to create a constant and repetitive message to prospects and customers,” says McCubbin.

*Source: Merkle View from the Inbox Survey, 2009.