None would doubt the growing significance of email marketing. According to eMarketer, under the current recession, media budgets are most likely to be reduced. However, the expenditure for online advertising, including email marketing, is still expected to grow swiftly at a rate of 10 percent. This sturdy insuperability of email marketing may due to the fact that email marketing incurs much lower costs than traditional ways of marketing, like promotions on televisions, magazines and newspapers, etc.
The 2009 Promo Interactive Marketing Survey is proof of the high cost-effectiveness and efficacy of email marketing because it shows that email marketing can truly generate higher return-on-investment (ROI).
List management is particularly significant in determining the effectiveness of email marketing campaigns. Ironically, many email marketers have ignored the need of list management recently. The knowledge of list acquisition, retention and cleansing is crucial for an email marketer to extract the maximum customer lifetime value without wasting any business opportunities. In the stage of list acquisition, marketers should be aware of whether they have gained the permission of the email-owner to send them email. For example, buying in email lists has been a hit recently, but it is never encouraged because the email owners have not expressed their willingness to receive email from an "unknown sender".
This would tarnish the reputation of that sender's IP address and result in a myriad of spamming reports. Behavioral targeting and loyalty programs are vital in customer retention. List cleansing is the part most email marketers have overlooked, but absurdly, it is the part that can determine the reputation of your IP address. Therefore, it is suggested that email marketers should pay more attention to list management, in order to maximize their business opportunities.
Other than list management, spam in China is also worth your attention. Though the spam problem was blistering in past years, it is gradually in decline. The spam rate has fallen from 21.1 percent to 7.5 percent in recent years. This shrink stems from the hard work China has contributed in abating spam and also the strictness of internet service providers (ISPs). The stricter the ISPs in China are, the more obstacles, such as volume control, content filters, or complaint blocks, that senders would encounter when sending out email. Therefore, under this trend of ISPs' getting stricter, email marketers need to take heed and avoid triggering spam filters, in order to send their email campaigns successfully.
Not only should email marketers pay attention to the two problems mentioned above, they should also observe the latest trend of the convergence of digital channels, in order to give appropriate reactions.
For example, the rise of the iPhone and smart phones has led to growing numbers of users who check email through their phones. Cross-channel marketing activities like promotions via email, SMS and MMS have become prevalent. About 75 percent of people believe that m-commerce is safe. Email marketers should therefore be aware of whether their email design is user-friendly on a phone interface, so they can trigger sales via m-commerce. The blazing popularity and the enormous networking size of Facebook and Twitter has also paved the way for closer cooperation of these websites and email senders. It is therefore extremely vital for email marketers to be more familiar with these websites.
There is no certain tip for email marketers to succeed in their advertising campaigns. It is their responsibility to keep track of the trends and give suitable responses. No others can help completely, only email marketers themselves can!
Francis Kwok is co-founder and CEO of Radica Systems.
