In case you missed it, here are the slides to the webinar that I (and the team from Mass Transmit) put on last week.
Along with several eye-opening stats and HTML coding tricks, you’ll also find really good tips for creating a one-size-fits-all email template framework, that renders well across mobile devices and desktop clients.
Eric Kirby, an email marketing veteran, delivered a keynote address Monday at MediaPost‘s Email Insider Summit, where he dismissed suggestions that email marketing may be losing steam while urging marketers to carpe diem and capitalize on social media networks.
Email has been the marketing workhorse for a decade, and that’s unlikely to subside, he said. This endorsement, which is supported with hard data, comes as the industry has dealt with suggestions in 2009 that its long-held, top-tier role is fading.
However companies are using some inventive programs with mobile and social media to grow enhance their email efforts that marketers could learn from, he indicated. Outback Steakhouse, for example, offered a free Bloomin’ Onion to the first 500,000 people who became its fans on Facebook. And its list grew by 125,000 between Nov. 16 and 24.
This and other relieving statistics (including Tiger Woods’ preferred media channel usage) are outlined is this well-delivered and insightful presentation.
This contribution is courtesy of Brian Massey. Brian is the Conversion Scientist™ at Conversion Sciences. He also writes about behavioral marketing at ClickZ Network.
A couple of graphs from MarketingSherpa drive an important point home about the use of e-mail for marketing. It works, it has always worked, and it will continue to work. You just have to know how to use it.
House List Email (as opposed to purchased list email) continues to get results for marketers.
In this graph, “Emailing to house lists” falls behind “Web 2.0 (social network marketing).” However, since fewer marketers are reducing the use of house list email, it should be #1.
I’ll go so far as to state this:
“If you don’t have your email marketing efforts nailed, you have no business investing in social marketing.”
Social marketing has its place, and is not a fad. But, we know so much about good, permission-based email marketing, that it is criminal to ignore it. Don’t let superstitions drive your marketing strategy.
The more sophisticated a marketer you are, the more likely you are to use house list email marketing.
MarketingSherpa has some choice interpretations of this graph:
“Those that see the effectiveness of their email programs diminishing are much more likely to have short-sighted organizational attitudes toward the tactic.
Organizations with investment-oriented views of email reap the rewards. They have higher open, click and conversion rates. In addition, they are much more likely to have a metrics-based grasp of how email works for them. Those with the “email is free” view, on the other hand, are more likely to fall into the group that doesn’t track conversion.”
It is so easy to measure email’s effectiveness, that I would argue that you can’t call yourself a marketer if you’re not watching your results. We call you a spammer.
You’re not marketing if your not measuring.
If all of your customers buy spontaneously on their first visit and never buy again, then you may not need to invest in email marketing. I don’t know of any business like this.
If your customers take weeks or months to come to a purchase decision, you cannot ignore email. Email is the biggest social network on the planet. Even retirees use email.
Your House List is the list of people who have given you permission to enter their inbox. This means they want what you have, and should be given every opportunity to opt out.
Don’t use email purely to promote sales and discounts. Use it to educate, inform and entertain. If you have a blog, send your most interesting posts via email. Most of us aren’t using RSS. Email is your ticket to growing your blog readership.
Then simply advertise in your own emails.
It does take time to build your house list, so start now. Email can be fun if you’re sending content that reflects your passion for your company, your industry and your brand.
Then you can start investing in the smaller, less intimate social networks out there.
Read more at http://conversionscientist.com/wordpress/email-marketing/its-time-to-get-your-email-on/
Marketers love numbers. Especially numbers that will amaze their clients with their grasp of the global impact of, you guessed it, email.
Wow! It’s good to be the king.
The Email Marketing Chronicles 