ClickMail Marketing helps you take email marketing beyond sending to delivering
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In his August 28 blog post titled “The new email marketing: embracing Web 2.0,” Mark Brownlow gives a great rundown of the potential and pitfalls of email marketers jumping on the Web 2.0 bandwagon. He takes on seven different points to consider, and offers plentiful links to more on most subjects. From Facebook to repurposing content, this isn’t a “how to” but it is a “how to think about it” guide that anyone involved in email marketing can benefit from. As an email marketing vendor who knows I must keep up to speed, I was glad to read it.
It’s sound advice, and timely, because you do have to consider social networking as part of your email marketing mix. It’s just a matter of determining in which way you’re going to do it. What makes the most sense for your marketing goals and your audience?
Overall, I was struck once again the reminder that–no matter what the medium–it’s the message itself that still has to have value. As Mark said:
“What you say, what you send, what you communicate still has to have value. In that sense nothing has changed since the day they printed the first newspaper.”
It’s something we as an email marketing vendor preach continuously: have value and be relevant. Be someone your customers want to hear from, and you’ll decrease your unsubscribes while you increase your email marketing ROI. This is about three crucial components: content, content and content.
Whether your content is delivered into an Outlook inbox, posted on a Facebook fan page, or Twittered about, make sure it’s content that your customers value. Even if we get to Web 9.0, the importance of relevant content will never diminish.
See Mark’s post at http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/iland/2008/08/new-email-marketing-embracing-web-20.html.
Every contact your customers and prospects have with your company and your products is part of your marketing, from the appearance of your store or Web site to the friendliness of a voice on the phone. It’s all part of the customer’s experience of your business and therefore your brand.
Including your email marketing.
Does your email marketing appropriately represent your brand? We’re not talking about your logo and your colors here. We’re talking about the whole experience. And when it comes to customers, perception is reality.
Think of all the parts that make up the customer’s experience with your email, and make sure your email marketing is in line with your brand, working for it, not against. Below are just a few of the obvious ones to consider…
Are you emailing too frequently? Not by your standards, but by those who get your emails. Emailing too frequently is akin to a waitress who keeps showing up at your table as you eat, or a salesperson hounding you as you go through a store. If obnoxious is your brand, then by all means, keep up the frequent emails. If not, make sure the frequency is appropriate.
Is your content relevant to your prospects and customers or only to you? Are you giving them information they want to get, or that you want to push out? Again, it’s part of your customer’s experience with your company and therefore your brand. If your brand is helpful and friendly, then your email content should be too.
Is it perfectly clear what you’re offering? Does your email make it easy to respond? Is the call to action obvious? Does it go to a distinct landing page?
Your logo is great, your employees are trained, your tagline is set…now make sure your email marketing is working for your brand too.
I’ve been working with someone gearing up for their first email marketing campaign. Sometimes you get close to a topic and you take things for granted, so it has been a good refresher course in how little some marketers know about email. We’re not talking the sophisticated emailing companies like REI or Alaska Airlines here, but the smaller company that has the wherewithal to be doing email marketing but not the knowledge.
With that in mind, here’s one really important aspect to keep in mind when planning your email marketing campaign: Have something people want. Have a great offer.
Just because you think it’s a good idea, just because you would want it, don’t assume the person getting your email necessarily wants to download your whitepaper or buy your gadget, or watch your video ad. Whatever you’re offering has to be truly compelling. You know how much email everyone gets every day because you suffer from the deluge too.
Maybe we take a lesson from Jim Collins book “Good to Great” when thinking about what we’re going to offer? He says good is the enemy of great, because if you’re good, you’re “good enough” and that’s not the same as being great.
Next time you’re planning an email marketing campaign, really evaluate that offer and ask yourself: is this a good offer? Or is it great? If it’s only “good enough,” go back and try again.
Otherwise, your emails will be wasted opportunities, not the revenue generators they should be.
Even people who originally opted in to get your email marketing might label you as spam. That’s because all you have to do is misbehave (in their opinion) and you run the risk of being reported as such.
An easy way to annoy your recipients and get falsely reported is by emailing too frequently. And as MarketingSherpa (http://www.sherpastore.com) points out in their Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2008, frequency is very much a matter of opinion. According to the guide, 50% of respondents said “emails that arrive too frequently” are spam…even when those emails come from a company they know! (p. 82). That’s a big chunk of your crowd thinking you’re emails are inappropriate and annoying, only because you’re sending too often. And, again, too often is according to the person on the other end, not your email marketing team.
The lesson here? Be flexible with frequency. Don’t overdue it, and make sure you’re always relevant…in the eyes of the recipient. Because spam’s not a label you want under any circumstances.
Customers are still buying as a result of email marketing, that’s for sure (and proven by a recent report conducted by Merkle). But their expectations are high, and companies using email marketing are falling short of those expectations due to lack of relevance.
Relevance: We keep hearing about it, but some of us still don’t get it. The eMarketer article about the survey quotes Lori Connolly, director of research at Merkle, as pointing out “There is a substantial gap between what marketers believe is relevant to the consumer, and what consumers rate as valuable.”
When 53% of consumers say they’re willing to get marketing in a transactional email ONLY if it’s relevant to their needs and interests, marketers have to listen…or risk pissing people off. And what do consumers do when they’re irritated by your email marketing? Some ignore, some delete, but some report you as spam, even when you’re not. Ouch.
Relevance is worth the effort.
