The Whitelist

You’d have to be  completely out of the loop to not constantly hear of the recession. But that doesn’t mean you have to be like Chicken Little panicked that the sky is falling either. The trick for you as the email marketer is to see the opportunity. You already know email marketing provides a better ROI than any other medium. You probably already have your company’s support to keep your program going, even as other marketing channels are cut back. So you’re in a good place (I hope). But it can be even better with the right outlook.
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The newest ClickMail Marketer hit inboxes this week. And it’s a gem, definitely required reading for anyone in email marketing. That’s because it tackles an issue at the root of email marketing ROI: You have to have good data, and plenty of it, to do the kind of targeted, relevant email marketing that gets results. But how do you get reluctant people to hand over personal information to you?
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Whether you’re filing on time, or filed for an extension, you know what today is: Tax Day. For many, taxes are particular hard to stomach this year because of the bailouts and the recession and the general doom and gloom.

But there’s always a bright side, even in the email marketing world. And it’s our job as an email marketing company to help you think outside the inbox and take advantage of the current economic state of affairs.
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As part of an ongoing series, this Tuesday, March 31, from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. EDT, Premiere Global Services presents a webinar titled “Retaining and Expanding your Email Universe.”
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Here’s a thought: Maybe email marketing is less about measuring the money made as ROI, but the relationship instead? Is the relationship worth more than the sale?

They say email marketing is the relationship medium, and that makes sense. Email is not a great tool for customer acquisition, but it is great for retention and lead nurturing. And retaining and nurturing are about relating. You might not be ready to buy right now, but if I stay in touch with you and keep providing you with useful information over time, you’ll get to know me, warm up to me, and choose me when you are ready to buy. I will have developed a relationship with you that paid off later.
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Relevance. Timing. Frequency. Subject line length. Email marketing involves many critical factors. But hard and fast rules about adhering to best practices don’t exist, despite all the reports and case studies that purport to have all the answers. A 35 character subject line might work for one type of email, while another does better with 55 characters. Some audiences respond well to weekly email promotions, while another balks at anything more frequent than monthly. And so it goes.
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Email marketing is a funny thing, a mix of art and science, and part of that science is the technology behind it. Without the technology, we wouldn’t be able to measure email delivery, track open rates, or test how our email design renders. But not all technology makes sense all the time. Sometimes a new technology comes along and we as an email marketing company must ask: Is this something we should be encouraging our clients to do?
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It’s Cyber Monday, the email marketing equivalent of Black Friday, and the perfect day to remind ourselves why email is so cost-effective, especially in a tougher economic climate like we’re experiencing right now. Off the top of my head, I can think of seven reasons our clients appreciate email marketing:

1. Email marketing costs less than direct mail. You create one email message and design and send it to as few or as many people as appropriate, only incrementally increasing your costs. (The price you pay to your email service provider is literally pennies compared to what you’d pay for printing and postage of a direct mail piece!)
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As an email marketing company, we want to help you drive email ROI. The DMAnc holds monthly educational luncheons to keep you up to speed on the latest in the moving pieces that are email marketing.

On November 19, Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council, will present “Individualized Relationship Marketing…Championing the Power of Precision Promotion” at the northern California chapter of the DMA. Donovan will be talking about one of our favorite email marketing topics: relevance!
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