When it comes to email marketing, make sure you're not just sweating over the creative, and end up neglecting the need for proper list management.

Email marketing has probably become one of the marketing tools with the highest ROI in your arsenal. However, according to an eMarketer survey on advertising spending preference in 2008, none of the respondents say they will increase budget on email marketing, and that marketers tend to spend more on behavioural targeting advertising. So, why the hesitation when it comes to spending on an email campaign? Perhaps it's a sign that marketers are having trouble with the tool. 

The top fear surrounding the use of email marketing is very likely to be the issue of spamming. Marketers are likely to be exhausted by the ever-changing rules of spam words and ISPs' shaky policies against email. On the whole, it costs marketers a whole lot of time and effort to sort these issues out. As you may know, spam filter may not be triggered instantly, rather, it is regulated by a score system. The main problem is no one, not even the email technology providers, can tell you exactly what's exactly wrong with your campaign. Some will only go as far as to provide you with tools to help you assess whether your finished artwork will be constitute as spam. But it will only provide an idea of the level of spam filtering threat, not a definite "yes" or "no" answer. When email blockage happens, no one can actually tell you the reason it happened. In other words, that is to say, every time you hit the send button on an email campaign, you could be at risk of being accused of spamming or you could end up with a high level of undelivered mails.

One thing for sure, however, is every little negative factor will accumulate in your domain history. How this works is, when your domain's negative score hits the red line, your email will not be sent through anymore, unless you can provide proper proof of opt-in. Spam filter technology is different, and the concept of running such a filtering system has been worked on for a long time. Known negative factors of creative include spam word density, an embedded programme script, among others. Data quality and sending speed are other factors contributing to negative domain score. Having too many of your email bounced back from a single domain, or even sending the email too quickly can also create problems. That is why it is crucial o ensure that you pay equal attention to list management and technology as you would the quality of the creative.

The root of the problem is few marketers think of list management before any email marketing campaign begins.

From my observation, most of the campaigns focus a lot on the creative production first. Yes, I agree that you may miss the opportunity to capture some customers' attention without a good looking design, a proper layout and call-for-action button.  But I think it is also very important that you involve your marketing as well as technical staff in the initial planning stage. This helps both teams figure out the issues relating to the flow of email address handling and many other data quality issues.

There are a number of issues to be addressed in list management. One of these includes how to carry out your email campaign without being regarded as spam, something many marketers struggle with.

Next week, we will look at some tips on ensuring that not only does your email marketing campaign looks good, but is also carried out legitimately with proper list management. This includes:

• Using opt-in and its pros and cons
• Handling bounce backs
• Win back disconnected customers vs. cost of acquisition?

River Ho is director, technology, of OneXeno. Read full bio.