$4.95 Trials Newest IM Products & IM Chat

Revenue and Data Management (05/19) | Email Marketing Advice

Contrary to what many might think, email marketing is not dead. but the key to assessing and understanding the latest trends is in customer data. Ritesh Gupta talked to Matt Blumberg, Return Path’s chief executive, about why having the right data, and the ability to analyse it accurately, is vital in the creation of effective email campaigns.

Worryingly many marketers still do not know if their email is delivered to the inbox. how can marketers possibly understand their response rates if they don’t even know if the email is delivered? and, more importantly, how can they make strategic decisions about where to put resources without basic data?

Before reading on remember one thing: chasing the latest trend in marketing is rarely a recipe for success. You need to understand your campaign metrics and what they say about your audience and your products and services.  

EFT: gone are the days when emails could be blasted out. Today there has to be a much more segmented approach. can an email campaign still work?

MB: I think now is a really great time to be an email marketer. It’s challenging, to be sure, as technology, business and marketing tactics continue to evolve rapidly. and certainly the days of hitting ‘send’ on broad, one-size-fits-all email campaigns and waiting for customers to respond are gone.

Marketers now have to develop more relevant, tailored campaigns to drive stronger levels of engagement. but the opportunity for success for marketers that do that well is nearly unlimited.

The challenge with engagement is that ISPs and marketers view it differently. Marketers view engagement as opens and clicks. ISPs look at areas such as emails retrieved from the junk folder, and emails deleted without being read. ISPs are increasingly looking to a new set of behavioural metrics whereby their approach to dealing with unwanted email is starting to change. instead of focusing on how to filter out unwanted email, ISPs are now considering how to be sure they are delivering the wanted email. that might sound like a distinction without a difference, but it’s actually a pretty big shift in thinking on the ISP side. and it means that senders whose subscribers demonstrate positive interactions with their marketing emails are increasingly being rewarded with preferential placement in the inbox by ISPs.

EFT: It used to be that email was only accessed via personal computer but with the rise of smart devices that is no longer the case. how do you see this evolving?  

MB: so that is changing, and it’s changing fast. we are projecting that by the end of 2012 mobile devices (which include tablets like iPad) will be the dominant platform for viewing email, ahead of PCs. this is the trend that gives us an ‘always on’ culture, where subscribers are used to accessing information anytime, anywhere and on a variety of platforms and devices. The good news is this gives marketers greater opportunities to communicate with and target customers.

But it also raises the bar for marketers to provide the right messages at the right time. given this huge trend, I was very surprised to see the recent report from eConsultancy that showed nearly half of marketers do not know how many of their subscribers are accessing their messages on the mobile platform. That’s really not acceptable. The key to maximising this opportunity is measuring and tracking not just where, when and how emails are opened, but also how effective the user engagement is. Marketers can gain valuable insight from industry studies and reports, but ultimately they need to analyse their own programme data to draw effective conclusions.

EFT: how should one approach email marketing today?

MB: The data doesn’t really support the idea that consumers are spending less time with email. In fact, there’s a lot of data that shows that, for example, the proliferation of mobile devices results in more time spent with email.

But as technology, lifestyle and business practices change, marketers must rethink their tactics and campaigns to be successful. new communication channels, give marketers new ways to engage with their audiences and impose new rules.

What is clear is that effective and coordinated email marketing is the number one component in every marketer’s tool box. It works as a standalone tactic, but it’s also central to all digital and social media marketing. Why?  because social networks’ models rely on email – they fuel its growth through notifications, login reminders and the like.

EFT: how do you foresee the role of email marketing going forward?

MB: our online presence as individuals, business people, consumers, friends and so on is underpinned by one common denominator: our email address. this is important to recognise for two reasons. Not only does it mean that most users value and are receptive to direct, one-to-one, communication; it also means email is still the core platform for engagement and interaction. Marketers will continue to put email at the centre of their marketing efforts. but, to the earlier points, to continue to generate success they will need to do so in new and innovative ways. Consumers are increasingly demanding about what constitutes ‘wanted’ and ‘relevant’ email. Marketers need to get much more comfortable pulling in data and analysing it to give their subscribers what they want when they want it.

EFT: to what extentis social media and email a potent combination?

MB: Email combined with social media messaging in new and exciting ways is the way of the future. With the wider landscape of communications channels now available to marketers, there are more opportunities for effective campaigns than ever before. but marketers need to think about these channels, and the combination of the channels, in new ways. Just slapping a Twitter logo on the bottom of your email is not integration. Really thinking about how and where your customers and prospects want to engage with you is the key.

Again, it all comes back to data. make it a key part of your day, your month, your quarter. The more you know the better you will be able to create communication – through all channels – that will break through the clutter and connect. and then it’s important to remember that with more and more users becoming active on a host of social media platforms, the key to this new media activity is still email. whether changing a password on a micro-blogging site or receiving an update from a social networking site, the user receives these notifications via email. It’s a habit and way of life, and smart marketers have recognised how to build email campaigns to harness the strength of new digital media.