The Future of Email Marketing: Part 2

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While social and mobile marketing grab headlines, email marketing is still the revenue-producing workhorse it has always been. Below is Part 2 on the Future of Email Marketing, featuring highlights from interviews with 3 industry gurus.     WDFM is sponsored by... Seven Ways to Beat the Bear Silverpop's latest white paper reveals why a recession is the perfect time to kick your marketing program into high gear, and shares seven secrets for strengthening your Market position and increasing ROI during a slowdown. Download "Seven Secrets to Recession-Proof Marketing" today. Coming Attractions: The next 3 issues of this newsletter are... Measurable Marketing Trends: Part 1 Blogosphere Marketing 10 More Subject Line Tips Did someone forward this email newsletter to you? If so, welcome. I invite you to subscribe yourself so you can get each new issue right away. Subscribe to this newsletter at http://www.wdfm.com. Below are highlights of interviews with 3 email marketing gurus on the Future of Email Marketing. Some of the comments below will surprise you. You may even disagree with what they have to say. But I think what they have to say will stimulate you into actionable steps you can take right now. Now, without further ado, here's Contributing Editor Janet Roberts with the highlights of those interviews. Take it awaaaay, JR... The Future of Email Marketing: Part 2 Email marketing faces a host of internal and external challenges today, but two stand out in particular: Externally, marketers are finding it harder than ever to get their messages delivered to the inbox. Internally, they face the challenge of keeping email top of mind with the executive suite and understanding which metrics accurately measure their email program's performance. The panel of email experts we assembled for this series offer good insights to help you meet both of these challenges. That's the good news. The challenge for you as a marketer is this: Are you ready to change the way you do email now and to do the work that's required to help your email program reach its potential? On our panel: Ken Magill, who writes the weekly Magilla Marketing column for DIRECT magazine Stefan Tornquist, who is the Research Director for MarketingSherpa Bill McCloskey, who is Chairman of Email Data Source, an email research firm specializing in marketing First up in the rotation, our experts weigh in on the number one issue marketers cite with email: 1. CAN-SPAM and the ISPs are not the enemy. Know what they require and what your subscribers expect, and respect them, and you will see better deliverability. Stefan Tornquist: "I'm concerned about the timing of this economic downturn and its impact on email marketing. "You're going to have more people looking to get more bang for their buck, and email has always been a fairly reliable way for getting a lot of bang for the buck. I worry that we are going to see this need drive more irresponsibility about it. "The spam button is something a lot of email marketers object to, but it's a positive thing, too. It creates a feedback loop for the first time. And it's a direct judgment on your email, which is something you should be paying attention to. "If you do what you're supposed to do, if you do not over mail, offend or bore your subscribers, it should all have a positive effect on your delivery." Ken Magill: "Marketers need to stop thinking in terms of tonnage and start segmenting messages, to start communicating with people the way they want to be communicated with. More marketers need to embrace behavioral targeting.... "I'm one of the few defenders of CAN-SPAM. I'm not saying we need to outlaw this and that, but these are the hardcore spammers. CAN-SPAM is the most enforced law in the world. We've seen over 100 enforcement actions so far. "However, you can't just pass a law. You have to set baseline legislation and let the technologists and the market do their work. And that is what we are seeing. That's the reality." The takeaway: The key to getting more email into your subscribers' inboxes is in your hands. It's not someone else's fault if your deliverability is low. Review what you're sending and how you do it so that you don't violate subscriber expectations or ISP rules.     WDFM is sponsored by... Are You Working with an Email Marketing Leader? The Forrester Wave™: Email Marketing Service Providers, Q4 2007 (Dec 2007) See how the 8 evaluated email service providers stack up across 64 criteria Learn how today’s marketers rely on their providers for expert strategy and services Discover what sets the top providers apart, and find the vendor that best fits your needs Download Your Free Copy Now 2. Email is the Rodney Dangerfield of marketing channels, seeking and not always getting the respect it deserves for its low cost and high ROI. Ken Magill: "Email is still at a fairly low level (within the corporate structure) and does not get a lot of respect in organizations that are not dotcom-driven. "Email is often managed by fairly junior staffers. As they grow up, they move on to be vice president of e-commerce or something, and someone else comes in to run (email marketing). This constant churn of new folks in the industry has hurt (email marketing)." Bill McCloskey: "Email doesn't sound as hip and young and exciting as mobile and social networking, but it's clear to me that social networking and email are tightly connected. However, people don't look at email as a social-networking platform. "To a certain degree, email is just the thing that has always worked, and it's expected that it will bring in X amount of revenue like it always has. However, the batch-and-blast mentality is reaching its limit. "Dynamic delivery of content, personalization and segmenting your lists, all of those things people have been preaching all these years, they all work, and all you have to do is implement them. "The problem I see is that large companies are not putting the investment in. You have to stress to your bosses that investment in email marketing pays for itself many times over." The takeaway: As with deliverability, keeping email top of mind with the executive suite doesn't happen by itself. Find the numbers that show how much email helps your company meet its objectives.     WDFM is sponsored by... Get Your Justification Report for Attending DMA08 Show Need help convincing your boss to let you out of the office to attend DMA's Conference & Exhibition-Las Vegas? Use Attendee Justification Tool Now! 3. The open rate alone is no longer a good measure of subscriber interest. Ken Magill: "I think marketers are still measuring the wrong things, maybe because they've moved over from other marketing channels and are using the metrics that were important there to measure email results. "Guys, you need to start measuring the lifetime value of customers." Stefan Tornquist: "Measurement is good; it's vital, but the curse of measurement is being able to measure only so many things accurately. "If you're going with your gut, you will make mistakes, but if you have incomplete measurements, you will make mistakes with the numbers. "People are still looking at open rates, and they shouldn't, because open rates have dropped dramatically. However, the other metrics haven't dropped apace. "The open rate is a relative metric and can get thrown off by so many factors, such as people not downloading images automatically when they open the email, or viewing only part of the email in the preview pane. "It all depends on people's viewing patterns. I read all sorts of things and none of it shows up in images." The takeaway: Look for metrics that measure your business goals, such as a clickthrough rate or conversion rate. The open rate works best as a comparative metric to find out which issues resonate best with your readers.     WDFM is sponsored by... 7 New Resources Just Added to Larry Chase's Internet Marketing Resource Center RSS Marketing Toolbox Best Practices for Thought Leadership Marketing Best Practices for Webinar Marketing 5 Web 2.0 Marketing Strategies 11 Multichannel Marketing Tactics Best eCommerce Blogs 9 Ways to Increase Solo Email Response Rates Resource Center: Stefan Tornquist: http://www.marketingsherpa.com Ken Magill: http://directmag.com/magill/ Bill McCloskey: http://billmccloskey.typepad.com/bills_blog/ Look for Part 1 of this conversation on the Web Digest for Marketers website: http://www.wdfm.com/marketing-viewpoints/future-email.php Attention Bloggers and Twitterers: You can link to the contents of this newsletter at the following URL and know it will live there permanently: http://www.wdfm.com/marketing-viewpoints/future-email-2.php Web Digest For Marketers, 79 Pine Street, #102, New York, NY 10005 © 1995-2008 Chase Online Marketing Strategies, All Rights Reserved. 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9/29/08 IN THIS ISSUE * Deliverability    Optimization * New Rules for Email    Metrics * Increasing Response    Rates * Behavioral Targeting * Internet Direct    Marketing Tip    of the Week * And More... Internet Direct Marketing Tip of the Week Does Your Copy Reflect the Times? I've seen advertisers rewrite copy and even create a new offer in order to resonate with something going on in the industry or in the world. When copy is timely, it can blow the doors off response rates. I've seen it many times in Web Digest For Marketers. On the other hand, I recently saw an ad in a newspaper with the headline, "Time to Indulge." At the time of this writing, I assure you many people are not thinking about indulging. They're thinking about how to cut back. The "Time to Indulge" was part of a larger campaign from this firm: "Time to Relax," "Time to Meditate" and so on. The ad was created a long time ago and slated to run before times got tough. It stood out like a sore thumb, and I seriously doubt it did well. The lesson here is to monitor the environment in which your ad is running and pivot on a dime to take advantage of changing times. Nimble ads that respond to these changing times could get you great response rates. LC Subscribe to this newsletter at no charge here. About WDFM Larry Chase's Web Digest for Marketers (WDFM) is a complimentary weekly email newsletter featuring mercifully short reviews and links on marketing-oriented websites. Get Larry Chase's top picks in over 40 marketing categories. Go to Larry Chase's Search Engine For Marketers. Advertising in WDFM This newsletter reaches over 40,000 decision-making marketers. Started in April 1995, WDFM was the first email newsletter about marketing on the Internet. Click for WDFM's latest media kit Housekeeping Want to stop receiving Web Digest For Marketers and FYI From Web Digest for Marketers? Just select the link at the very bottom of this email and you'll be removed from the list. But I'll miss you terribly. :-) If you received this issue from a colleague and you want your own subscription, you can get that by visiting http://wdfm.com and filling out the subscription form. It takes less than a minute. I encourage you to pass this issue of WDFM along, provided you do not change the copy, you keep the opening and this closing material, and you notify me. Ok, you don't have to notify me, but if you do, I will thank you personally. :) Thanks for reading all the way down to the bottom of this newsletter. :) Cordially, Larry Chase: Publisher Web Digest For Marketers http://wdfm.com Author: "Essential Business Tactics f/t Net" Sample chapter at http://LarryChase.com Ph: (212) 619-4780 Contact Larry