Email Marketing Gets a Bum Wrap
| Diane Vautier March 10, 2010 |
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Email gets a bum wrap, but despite its reputation as nothing more than spam, email marketing has and continues to be an economical and targeted way of communicating with customers and prospects alike. In fact, it’s one of the most expedient and measurable means of direct marketing.
eMarketer (6/12/09) cited email marketing as the second most effective online marketing tactic, behind search marketing. That sort of ROI accountability can be especially useful when every penny of your marketing budget has to perform at its best.
In addition to being ROI friendly, email marketing has tremendous flexibility in how it is used as a tool. What’s more, it can be used alone or in combination with other media to boost campaign effectiveness.
Here are just a few ways adding email can give your marketing plan a boost without busting your budget.
Prospecting New Customers
Slumping sales can motivate companies to evaluate their existing customer base and consider searching for more customers like their current ones or searching for different types of customers all together. Either approach can have a big impact on the bottom line of sales.
The nature of direct email lets you economically target these potential new audiences at a reasonable price level. You can explore a specific audience by purchasing a single-use or multiple-use list of potential customers from a reputable list management company either in a geographic area, industry segment or demographic profile. There are countless ways to slice the data which offers you an opportunity to be specific in what you do or to whom you target.
Always include testing and tracking as part of prospecting email so you can adjust your message or offer depending on the response you receive.
Drive Inquiries
Email is also a useful tool to drive inquiries to your website. It makes interaction with the recipient easier than its more traditional print direct mail counterpart, and closes the gap between you and your customers and/or prospects. With email, recipients are only one simple click away from being connected directly to your company via the web.
Remember that email is often the first conversation you have with a prospect so you need establish credibility by delivering on what you offer. It is also the first step in the sales cycle so understand each step that a customer takes and what actions specifically are needed to move through the cycle and convert to a sale.
Understanding the cycle will give you a more reasonable expectation of what the email can do as the initial step, rather than expecting it to deliver the signed, sealed and delivered sale.
Manage Existing Customer Relationships
Most sales professionals agree that it’s more cost effective to earn incremental business from existing customers than it is to find entirely new customers.
Email can serve as a vital link to your existing customer base by increasing your communication with them. It’s a direct conversation that keeps them apprised of promotions, special offers, product updates or enrichment opportunities. Cross-selling, up-selling, and down-selling are all improved by direct email communication with existing customers.
Email can also be a useful tool to manage online orders with purchase confirmations, re-order reminders, order tracking or other interactive information. Combining email technology with the sales process not only improves customer communication but has the potential to save big on administrative expenses tied to customer service. Some companies have even found great value in establishing a grass-roots email referral system to tap into the good will of satisfied customers by encouraging ‘pass-along’ traffic.
Gain Customer Intelligence
When tough economic times put a damper on spending, it becomes ever more critical to understand the reasons why a customer or prospect chooses to purchase or pass.
Email can offer a means of intelligence gathering that helps companies gain consumer purchasing insight. This is especially true when working with existing customers on an email campaign to an existing audience. Existing customers, or others who opt-in to a company’s mail list, may be prompted to provide customer preferences. Frequently, customers are willing to provide information on their particular habits or interests in order to guarantee that the information they will receive is tailored to their desires. In so doing, they are providing valuable information on potential purchase trends and decision points.
Data that reveals how often they’d like to receive contact, and what type of contact they’d prefer (ie. newsletter, coupons, sales flyers, new product releases) and if they’d like to share links/data with others, all contributes to defining a customer profile. That information can be referred to when planning the frequency of future email campaigns, when customizing the content, tailoring the incentive, and targeting certain types of products.
Integrate with Other Campaigns
The flexibility of email makes it suitable to use alone or in combination with other marketing programs to improve the outcomes of those programs. For example, use it prior to a trade show informing customers where and what you’ll be exhibiting, or as a follow up after the show thanking customers for stopping by the booth, or to offer them special follow-up show pricing. It’s the ideal medium to combine with web landing pages to streamline online conversion paths. The email click connects users to a web landing page that delivers the email offer in exchange for either information or further clicks in the sales path toward purchase. Even if a user doesn’t commit on the conversion with this particular offer, the opportunity to establish a permission based email relationship can contribute to long-term ROI.
Email Backlash
Email can be a powerful direct marketing tool, especially when accountability is important. But like any tool that works well, its overuse or misuse can lead to backlash. Plan campaigns at comfortable intervals so as not to overexpose customers and prospects to the medium, which could devalue it as a communication tool. If purchasing a list, also be sure to use reputable list providers with current contact information so that what you’re sending is going to the right person. Establishing an in-house permission based list and allowing an opt-out feature helps recipients feel they are in control of what they receive, which ultimately helps you target your offers more successfully. And lastly, always follow the legal guidelines of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. Doing so will ensure your email efforts are executed according to accepted standards and will help you avoid being blacklisted.
Even though email gets a bum wrap as spam, if it’s used properly, it’s a viable and effective marketing tool and should be considered as part of an ongoing marketing mix.
Marketing | Diane Vautier | 
5:21 pm
