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20 PrecisionMarketing February 22 2008
With ever greater levels of compleDigital Marketing Reporxity and functionality to database sot: Email Marketingftware upgrades,
do marketers really need such high-end applications to analyse their records?
With ever greater levels of complexity and functionality to database software upgrades.
Andrew Robinson
What you are going to see
this year is a separation
between expenditure and vol-
ume. That is very important
Headline to
Volker Wiewer
In order to develop trust, we
go in here
must have our own house in
order and ensure that as an
industry we are doing every-
thing to improve our own
reputation
“A lot companies have built a single customer view of their cus- While retention activity is working positively, acquisition has
tomers, but that is very difficult to do in the digital world. If you seen softening metrics. That is helping to educate marketers out of
send out 1 million emails in six different versions, that is hundreds seeing it as a quick, easy and cheap medium. “It has been too easy
of thousands of pieces of information. Many systems are not truly to get a return by blasting the same message to lots of people,” he
capable of analysing that,” says Black. says.
One of the issues that has beset email is that marketers have Focusing on customer-targeted emails does place higher
not understood that they are using a medium in a way they would demands on the quality of the targeting, offer and creative, which
never dream of doing elsewhere. It is at least a century since some organisations will struggle to deliver.
brand owners wrote their own advertising copy for press ads, for Ensuring that the contents are varied to reflect the differences
example. between individuals requires a major increase in the resources
Yet a large proportion of clients continue to plan, create and dis- deployed, compared to broadcasting a standard message to all. Yet
tribute email without any external professional help. That is not a it is this approach which realises the true potential of email, gets
recipe for success, either in getting recipients to open a message or it delivered and opened, and drives ROI.
even to get it past an ISP’s filters. It will also help to ensure that legitimate marketing gets recog-
“One of the biggest issues is with creative. A lot of people have nised by ISPs, something that is essential to the continued growth
the mistaken idea that email is cheap and so they do it themselves,” of the medium.
says Kath Pay, managing director of Ezemail and a member of the “The ISPs are under no obligation to send our emails and if 2008
DMA Email Marketing Council. “There are lots of little issues that Q1 is to mark an improvement, the DMA and the industry must act
can end up causing a filter to block your message, such as uneven to improve relations between them and the service providers,” says
tags.” Volker Wiewer, chief executive of eCircle.
Images are perhaps the most contentious area for marketers
when creating emails. The way these are rendered is critical, but
there are also pitfalls, such as composing a message entirely out of
images, with the result that 19 per cent of consumers will not open
them.
‘‘
Text-only readers will not register. The same
is true with a Blackberry – you can’t tell if
Experience with image-based spam has led many consumers to
turn on image-blocking preferences on their email clients, so they somebody has read an email. Open rates are
only see the subject line. Many common email readers also preview
‘‘
the message in a separate pane so the recipient does not even have good to gauge against last month, but you
to open it to see what it is about.
These factors have a negative impact on statistics about open can’t use them to compare against last year
rates, which Pay believes may account for the apparent downward
trend. “Text-only readers will not register. The same is true with a
Blackberry – you can’t tell if somebody has read an email. Open “However, in order to develop trust, we must have our own house
rates are good to gauge against last month, but you can’t use them in order and ensure that as an industry we are doing everything to
to compare against last year,” she says. improve our own reputation. If we can build a closer relationship
This year is likely to see a continuation of the shift towards reten- with the ISPs, the DMA can work with email providers and com-
tion as the major strategic driver of email marketing. Already it panies who are not cleaning databases or checking the deliver-
accounts for at least two-thirds of volume and that balance is likely ability of their emails,” he says.
to increase further during 2008. That plays to the strengths of data- Unlike other media, there is no media owner as such and no
driven, targeted and relevant messages, since companies know so major gatekeepers to stop individual advertisers from using poor
much more about customers than prospects. quality data, weak creative and offers. ISPs can filter out messages
For Steve Lomax, managing director, Europe, of Cheetahmail, they do not like, but they can not stop them being sent in the first
which only broadcasts customer emails, this is why the medium place, unlike TV, press, outdoor and even, to some extent, direct
“is going to be very successful in 2008. For a number of our clients, mail. Nor is cost an obstacle.
the performance is phenomenal”. Instead, what is bringing email into line with best practice else-
Against typical response rates of 25 per cent for prospect emails, where is the growing recognition that, if a user of the medium does
customer emails can deliver between 50 and 70 per cent typically. not do it right, they will not get the highly positive ROI which is
“Performance is the best I have seen in ten years with an increased possible. If you are going to be in a game, you may as well play to
return on investment in absolute values,” says Lomax. win.
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