PM_220208_p019 20/2/08 12:52 Page 19
February 22 2008 PrecisionMarketing 19
With average monthly mailing volumes nearly twice what they were 12
months ago and click to open rates holding steady, the future looks very
bright for email marketing in 2008
You must admit
it’s getting better
By David Reed
f you look closely, you can find some very positive he believes that a change in mindset among marketers is central
I
signs about the state of email marketing. For one to the improvements in performance which are possible this year.
thing, investment in the medium continues to grow “Marketers are still judged on the size of a campaign and some
strongly. In the DMA Email Marketing Benchmark are under pressure not to take people out of a list who have not
Report for Q2 2007, carried out with Tank!, average opened or responded recently. The downside of that is the more you
monthly mailing volumes were up to 50 million, send to people who don’t want it, the more the ISPs become con-
nearly double the monthly rate in 2006. cerned,” says Bunting.
Despite this jump in volumes, click to open rates were holding In part, this is due to a lack of understanding among some mar-
steady at 21.6 per cent for retention emails and 13.9 per cent for keters. After all, email is really only about a decade old, which
acquisition emails. Hard bounce rates had also fallen against the means there are very few really skilled practitioners with the depth
same quarter in 2006, down to 2 per cent from 5 per cent for cus- of knowledge to drive changes or create effective campaigns.
tomer emails and to 4 per cent from 6 per cent for prospect emails. “The resources to make the most of the email channel are still
Among these positives, some negatives still persist, however. quite scarce in marketing departments. It is often one of the last
Deliverability continues to slide – nearly one-third of all cold emails jobs on the to-do list, rather than a specific focus,” he says.
are blocked, together with one-fifth of warm messages. Frustrat- This explains why conference sessions, demonstrations and
ingly for marketers, around 5 per cent of their emails are blocked training courses about digital marketing and email are usually
in error by ISPs. heavily-oversubscribed. There is a rush to build knowledge
Yet across the sector, there is a view that email is not only get- since it is difficult to hire it in, given the relatively small pool of
ting better, but that 2008 could be a breakthrough year for the practitioners.
medium. “Revenues for email marketing generally are going up,” As this happens, a divide is opening up which may explain why
says Andrew Robinson, managing director of Lyris UK. “What you email often operates as a standalone medium, rather than being
are going to see this year is a separation between expenditure and integrated with other activity. It may also explain why email is
volume. That is very important.” often not driven out of direct marketing activity, despite its obvi-
He believes the key to the success of email this year will be a gen- ous potential for accountable marketing with data building.
uine focus on targeting as opposed to broadcasting. Where mar-
keters have been pushing to achieve a specific volume of emails,
they are going to be looking for more relevance. “That is a whole
change of mindset,” he says.
As an example of how this approach is being adopted, he points
‘‘
When they used to send direct mail, it cost them
£1 each item, so they thought very carefully
to the work Lyris is doing with Celtic FC. “They are keen to
increase sales of home shirts as the season comes towards its end about the return on investment. Now they are
‘‘
and they have got stock left,” says Robinson.
When a fan visits the website, they are sent an email reminder sending email for a few pence, they feel they
about the shirt if they have not already bought one. Cookies are
placed on the fan’s computer when they click through from an may as well send a million
acquisition email, allowing their onsite behaviour to be tracked
and then promoted in this way.
One of the essential infrastructure elements for this type of inte- “One of the issues we have to deal with is that older marketers
grated marketing is the link between Web analytics and email from the direct marketing world have been charged with roles
broadcasting software. Robinson says that the launch of Lyris HQ involving digital marketing and they don’t always get it,” says
means that clients no long have to develop this in-house, they can Bryan Black, managing director of Email Reaction.
use it as an outsourced service instead. He places the volume-based mindset firmly at the feet of these
James Bunting, head of client services at Communicator Group, practitioners. “When they used to send direct mail, it cost them £1
is also optimistic about the health of this channel: “Email is start- each item, so they thought very carefully about the return on
ing to get it right, but there is still a long way to go.” He also iden- investment. Now they are sending email for a few pence, they feel
tifies segmentation and personalisation of messages as central to they may as well send a million,” says Black.
this shift. Data-driven email marketing is a worthy aspiration, especially
“Deliverability has stabilised, but we still see as much as 10 per the reactive model which ties messaging to website visits. But there
cent of a campaign not reaching inboxes,” he says. Like Robinson, are genuine infrastructure obstacles which stand in the way.
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