DM p28 Opinion Dec08.qxp 02/12/2008 10:44 Page 28
Opinion
T
he E-Consultancy / Adestra Email Marketing that ROI is up to 2x, while 24% are achieving 5x or
Industry Census 2008, the largest survey of its more – the use of integrated systems and good data
kind in the UK with 600 respondents, finds a plays a significant part in this.
number of worrying practices in use among email Disappointingly, this lack of confidence in the
marketers today. The common thread is data. Clearly, accuracy of their data means many marketers are
reluctant to deploy seemingly simple, tactical cam-
Poor data
paign improvements such as personalisation, segmen-
tation and testing programs.
Often, the outsourced email marketing tool is bolt-
‘catastrophic’ for
ed on to existing processes and builds up a database
of information. Most ESPs can integrate this informa-
email campaigns
tion with the marketer’s own web sites and databases
as standard. Others work with companies who pro-
vide database products that can consume data from
Poor management of
numerous sources, de-dupe and match back to cam-
data can have a
paigns to provide measurement and ROI tracking.
Work with your ESP (and database aggregators) to
devastating effect on improve your database by:
email marketing. Hollie
1. Implementing a regular cleansing program
2. Investing in integrating key systems across your
Williams discovers why, organisation
and offers advice on
3. Always using confirmed double opt-in
4. Surveying your contacts to learn more about them
making sure your
to improve segmentation and behavioural targeting
campaigns don’t suffer
5. Implementing email validation to ensure the make
up of domains is correct
this way.
6. Not doing all the work yourself – encourage con-
tacts to use ‘update your details’ forms
7. Always record the original source of the data
poor management of data can have a catastrophic
effect on email marketing – no matter how good your Recommendations
design, offer or deliverability, poor data can kill your Targeting contacts with relevant messages from an
carefully crafted communications. accurate database is fundamental. Segmentation is
It’s not all doom and gloom; on the plus side email moving up email marketers’ agendas, but some of the
marketing is being used more, segmentation is more sophisticated behavioural targeting and trigger
improving, budgets are up and it’s proven to provide sends are still not widely adopted. Before investing in
excellent ROI. However, let’s look at the facts and these programmes, ensure that your house is in order.
concentrate on improving effectiveness. The age-old adage of walking before you run applies.
Only 57% of UK email marketers admit to cleans- Integrating different databases and touch points
ing their databases regularly – small wonder email across the company to create one customer view to
effectiveness and deliverability problems occur. The power relevant multi-channel communications is a
findings show deliverability is a major problem for dream that is impossible with data accuracy problems.
more than half and over two thirds not using email The research highlights the importance of good
effectively. The key reasons cited are ‘lack of budget’ data in email marketing – without this foundation
and ‘poor quality of data’. Targeting contacts with rel- any strategy is dead in the water, no matter how
evant messages from an accurate database is funda- good the design and content are.
mental. Importantly, key to moving your ROI from Across the industry, email is still being used at a
email to 5x is by starting to invest in cleansing your basic level – less than 1in7 have implemented behav-
databases and linking them together. ioural targeting and 1in5 are testing advanced seg-
Systems must be integrated to ensure databases are mentation.
updated automatically and capture data from multi- Until widespread implementation of the basic
ple channels – more than 8 in 10 have ‘no integra- email marketing practices occurs, the more advanced
tion’ or ‘some’. Non-integrated systems prevents and ‘clever’ functions that really utilise the power of
effective measurement of ROI and hampers effective email marketing cannot be unleashed.
n
marketing– particularly in a multi-channel scenario.
There appears to be a huge spread of email marketing Hollie Williams is client strategy consultant at
effectiveness – 49% of company email marketers say Adestra.
28 Database Marketing December 2008 www.dmarket.co.uk
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