Making A Success Of Email Marketing

I had a conversation that surprised me this week. It was with the head of a very successful Australian direct marketing agency.

He told me he does not believe in email marketing. ‘We have tried it a few times and it has created too much angst,’ he said.

Despite the problems with SPAM, this approach surprised me because so many people I know are ‘living in their inboxes’. And whenever I ask my students, most say that they like receiving relevant information from their preferred suppliers via email.

Plus, there are so many surveys, that tell us a huge percentage of the population likes email. Unsurprisingly, according to one group called Jupiter Research, some 93% of U.S. Internet users consider email to be their top online activity.

So what are the marketing keys that can make email either a positive or a negative?

Well, first of all, you need to walk in the shoes of the customer or prospect. Of course, this is a natural for professionals with marketing in their bones. Looking at the situation from the customer point of view, you can think in terms of what adds value for them.

Critical success factor 1: List building
Be selective about who is added to your list or you'll create hassles for yourself down track.

Only add people where you get their permission first. By all means give them a value proposition to encourage them to sign up, but don’t push too hard. Do say something like, ‘we’ll have regular handy information for you to use’. But don’t say, ‘we’ll have so many fantastic prizes you’ll be a winner in no time’.

Critical success factor 2: Relevancy
What a surprise! This one just happens to be one of the fundamentals of all direct marketing. To make a success of email marketing, you have to make certain your emails are relevant and valuable to the recipients.

Walking in the shoes of the customer can help you get this right.

In the recipient's mind, you have to be known for sending high-quality messages. Otherwise, you will be ignored or recipients will very quickly unsubscribe.

Critical success factor 3: Timing
Many people ask me, how often should I email my customers? It is a good question. And people are right to ask it. There is no general answer that is right in all cases. However, rather than asking me, it would be better to ask customers.

I might be quite interested to receive an ‘information update’ from my travel agent every couple of months, but every week, would become a nuisance (after all I don’t organise a holiday all that often – unfortunately).

There are more than three things to do right, when tackling email marketing , but if you make certain of these three for starters, you are certainly on the way to making effective use of a channel that is so much part of life for so many people. Sorry, must go now. Need to check my emails.

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