I predicted back in January that 2009 would be the year of the email marketer. Times got rough mid-last year and executives were scrambling to maintain revenue and keep customers happy. With email marketing's high ROI and low investment - and seemingly endless capacity for earning higher and higher revenue from the same database - we got quite a bit of notice.


Earlier this year, this executive attention got me all excited. "We email marketers generate the most revenue off the lowest costs, so now is our chance to really take center stage! Bring it on!" I think this is still generally true .... that email marketers have a chance to optimize now, and get resources now, that we didn't have before the recession.
Perhaps I was overly optimistic. I just returned from two months on the road, speaking in the Online Marketing Summit Whistle Stop Tour - a great series of local events around optimizing digital marketing from search to email to social to web analytics.
I must report honestly. It is woefully apparent from dozens of conversations that email marketers have mostly squandered our time in the spotlight. Most have not taken advantage of this executive attention in any meaningful way, and not enough have plans for the second half of the year that incorporate the kinds of investments that will move the needle on subscriber experience and drive higher response. Investments like deeper eCRM data integration, triggered behavior messages, testing programs and inbox deliverability data. Truly, batch & blast remains a prevailing mindset.
Heck, we even had the opportunity to educate executives about the real business drivers of email: Subscriber experience and satisfaction. And the very real penalties for short term thinking: List churn, ISP complaints and low inbox deliverability. Seems we missed that chance, too. Sigh.
Perhaps this is not terribly surprising. Right now in any digital channel there isn't as much innovation as preservation: Preserving our jobs and our team, our database assets, our list hygiene and deliverability budgets. Marketing budgets do not seem to be growing, but the investment continues to be strong with email and search, where the immediate revenue is.
For that reason, it's not too late. Executives should still welcome advocates for the email program - especially if you use the data you have to make the case for how a little investment will go a long way toward more revenue in Q4. Take forward a few ideas to build retention and revenue, and email marketers can still be the hero of the year. Consider:
1. Test the lift in response when you customize the first five messages after sign up - like an extended welcome series. If you can engage with 10%-25% more new subscribers, and earn revenue faster, what does that mean for the bottom line and loyalty? Plus, you gain in word of mouth from happy new customers, who will be delighted that you created something special for them. Segment by source, geography, product, customer status or profile. Use this data to get resources for automating these triggers to more segments.
2. Seed your email campaigns in order to track your true inbox deliverability. When you know the domains (e.g.: Yahoo!, Hotmail, Comcast) that are most important to you, you can focus on sending practices valued by those particular ISPs. Most ESPs will give you a "delivered" number which is really your bounce rate (usually 1%-5% is lost to bounces). If you don't see true inbox deliverability for your campaigns, ask for it or engage a deliverability service provider. Most email marketers lose about 20% of their messages to the spam filters with every campaign. What's a 15% or 20% lift in revenue look like? That's an easy case to make for investing in deliverability reports in order to optimize your sender reputation.
3. Analyze complaints to improve customer satisfaction. A complaint is registered every time someone clicks the Report Spam button. You can sign up for feedback loops from the major ISPs (e.g.: Yahoo!, AOL, Hotmail, United Online) and they will send you the list of subscribers who complained. Remove these folks from your file, but also analyze this data. Is there a day of the week or a message type or a source that generates disproportionate numbers of complaints? That tells you a lot about subscriber satisfaction - and gives you actionable data to fix whatever is irritating your subscribers. Use this data to make the case for advanced segmentation, dynamic content and database hygiene.
4. When is the last time you took a look at your templates? Unless you update them regularly, there is likely a whole bunch of stuff that has been added in over time, and the result is a lack of cohesive layout or priority. Clutter = confusion = lower response. We recently helped a marketer match the email offer and image to the website and earned a 28% lift in response. Another client removed a bulky navigation bar and found a 32% jump in clicks. An investment in a great new design could shore up your engagement levels well before the Q4 rush.
5. Frequency testing is hard to do, but there are some simple alternatives. Over a 90 day period, track those who opt-out against the number of messages received by each in a given week or month. You may find that you could bump up some subscribers to a higher frequency with no increase in the unsubscribe rate (but presumed increase in revenue from an additional mailing). You may also find that the unsubscribe rate jumps when messages come three days in a row, but not when they arrive every other day. Use this data to fund investments in relevancy and deeper analytics.
I'd like to think that everyone reading this will nod their heads and say, "I've been meaning to have this exact conversation with my CMO/CEO." I say, "Go, marketer, go!"
I do believe that come New Year's, we marketers will be judged. Did we only scramble to protect our organizations to survive in the downturn, or did we go further and strengthen our market position and our brands for the recovery?
What will your legacy be?