Recession Proof Email Marketing

5th December 2008

Categories: News - Archive

There aren't many industries which can expect to do well in a recession but email marketing is expected to be one of them and it is set to increase next year as brands look to deliver cost effective and measurable communication methods.

According to the Direct Marketing Association, spend increased by 19 per cent to £1.1bn in 2007 and the DMA's Email Council expects this expansion rate will continue throughout the economic downturn.

Although it continues to be a challenge to get past firewalls and spam filters, there are still many benefits to be gained:-

- Offers can be tested fairly cheaply - with a whole new economic reality you may need to trial offers to test response rates

- Design costs are minimal - templates can be created and run for a while without any major changes

- You can build your list organically (from brochure requests and bookings) - it's always a better way to build a list rather than use a list broker as response rates will be always be higher

- You can stay in touch with your database as often as you like - with well known brands disappearing overnight, consumers may be glad to see a little positivity

- It's easy to defend your email marketing efforts to senior management - the Direct Marketing Association revealed in October that email's ROI was more than double that generated from non-email Internet marketing ROI

- You often can conduct competitive research just by looking in your inbox - sign up for your competitors eNewsletters to help you keep your finger on the pulse.

Here's a few tips for improving your email strategy:-

- Think carefully about subject lines - they can make or break the success of the campaign

- Ensure that your email is timely and think carefully about frequency of mailings - too few and you miss opportunities to engage and too many and you run the risk of consumer fatigue

- Ensure that the creative is compelling and conforms with your image as presented in other on and off-line media.

- Divide your target audience into at least 2 or 3 different segments and tailor the message accordingly to ensure relevancy

- Don't just include offers - include content which is of real interest and keeps people's attention

- Use tracking software to learn which content is most popular and how recipients are following it up - this will be invaluable when planning future campaigns

- Avoid overuse of images as they can get stripped out by firewalls (important information which is embedded into graphics, such as dates or prices may be lost

- Guard your reputation by enabling recipients to opt-out easily, targeting carefully and avoid emailing too frequently

New Mind is currently rolling out the Communicator eCampaign Management system to our tourism clients allowing them to grasp the full potential of email marketing. Contact your Account Manager for more information.

Source:- Revolution Nov 2008