Most email marketers know the frustration of trying to secure adequate funding for their online efforts. "Direct mail is so expensive that mailers can often justify a marketing database and top-notch analytics team to help manage costs," says Elana Anderson. "Unfortunately, email is so cheap that online marketers struggle to make the same argument. And executives, often skeptical of business cases that don't show cost reduction, are hesitant to pony up funds for email program improvement." If you find yourself in this position, Anderson's advice includes:

• Framing your work in terms of ongoing project management, not ad hoc campaign management. "Email marketing managers must start to measure, understand, and track metrics like program engagement or the lifetime value of an email contact to illustrate the value of the email program," she notes.
• Partnering with fellow database marketing teams to leverage skills and infrastructure. Aside from the obvious reduction in duplicated expenditure and output, this also facilitates multi-channel customer communications.
• Building a strong case for ROI. Detail for key decision makers the specific challenges you face, and how an investment will pay off. Example: "[P]erhaps customer win-back and re-marketing tactics are really hard for your organization because they require manual data pulls from your Web analytics tool, external data massaging, manual import ... [and] execution. Document the benefits of lights-out automation of those tactics."

The Po!nt: Sing for your supper. Get the message out: While good email marketing might look cheap, that doesn't mean it comes cheap.

Source: ClickZ. Read the full article here.

→ end article preview
Read the Full Article