Businesses should be investing more in e-mail marketing in 2008.

in Email Marketing, Online Strategy / Web Development

The email channel continues to be a solid performer in 2008. New communication channels and methods have yet to dethrone the king of direct marketing as email continues to strengthen its position as the workhorse channel in the online space.
 

The power of email to personally engage a recipient in your brand, and to continue the communication while learning more and more about the recipient and strengthening the relationship, is undisputed.
 

The permission based channel has continually delivered extraordinary ROI in the past, and new sophisticated approaches to the channel promise a very bright future. A well planned, well executed email program can directly drive sales, increase brand loyalty, and strengthen customer relationships. A poorly planned and executed campaign can result in significant brand damage.

Most businesses have realised the the importance of the channel and are running an email program, if you're not doing it, or not doing it effectively, at best you are leaving money on the table, at worst you could be damaging your brand.
 

Many business find themselves in 2008 with inadequate resources assigned to the channel. It may be that the marketing department is running the program as adjunct activity without its own line item in the budget and no real resource allocation besides a software subscription. Emails are being written, designed and sent out to the list, open and click-through rates are being glanced at then the marketing department calls it a day on email and gets back to work on other elements of the marcom mix. 
 

In today's environment of swamped inboxes, spam filters and high customer expectation, for a businesses is to see a high ROI and protect their brand, they need to invest more resources in a program that earns trust and provides real value to the customer. Earning trust and delivering value in 2008 requires a more sophisticated and strategic approach now that the novelty has worn off. An investment in this now will pay big dividends as emerging mobile platforms drive increasing importance in direct online marketing.
 

Below are 5 key topics for consideration to increase the performance of your email program.
 

Relevancy, Segmentation, Relevancy 

It is all about relevancy now. How well do you know your contacts, are you ensuring that you are only sending them relevant content. Technology is making it easier to profile list members based on information they provide and a continually building behavioral profile. Dynamic segmentation, dynamic content and trigger based campaigns have become technically eaiser, but careful planning and analysis is the key to relevancy. Successful email campaigns will talk directly to each recipient with relevant and value adding content.
 

Put email at the core of your marketing campaign channel mix

Email is a great channel to use at the core of your campaign. Indirect channels can find prospects and ignite interest, and then hand them over to power of direct, personalised email to further drive engagement, build rapport and provide support throughout the purchasing cycle. Most smart campaigns, even using traditional media will integrate a response device, email can then follow-up and build the relationship.
 

Test, test, test

Continuous testing is one of the easiest, yet commonly ignored strategies to improve the success of your email program. A/B split testing can quickly guide you towards which subject line, offer, copy and design your segments respond best to. Low open rates; test different subject line approaches. Low click through rates; test different content, call to action and offers.  Keep testing, keep refining, keep improving. Continual testing and refinement over time should be reflected in improving ROI metrics.

List maintenance

List maintenance is critical. Poor list management not only dilutes your success metrics, but can also harm your email reputation leading to increasing deliverability issues. Proper bounce management cannot be overstated. Close attention also needs to be payed to inactive list members. If they fail to respond to a reactivation campaign, it's best to clean them off the list. Allowing and encouraging your lists members to keep their own details up to date through an online profile and preference centre is a convenient way to have the members contribute to list maintenance. Why not let your users keep your list up to date for you? 
 
Campaign Planning

Planning is the key to success. An effective communications campaign rarely involves a single email, and cross selling strategies may bridge two otherwise separate email campaigns. Typically a campaign might consist of time triggered emails, online response triggered emails, offline action triggered emails, and product or service life-cycle triggered emails. In addition, user actions in one campaign might make them ideal candidates for another (cross-sell) campaign. With mounting complexity, careful planning is critical to efficency and effectiveness. This planning must review all the various pathways a user might follow through a campaign and the possible bridges between different campaigns or offers. Frequency and relevancy must be analysed through every possible step of the communications campaign. Modern EDM platforms like Cannonball make planning and executing multi-email campaigns, as well as bridging different campaigns a much easier task.