Successful e-mail marketing campaigns

E-mail marketing has rapidly developed as a key online marketing technique over the past decade, being seen as a highly cost-effective form of direct marketing. This can still be the case, with careful planning and management, but the rise of e-mail spam now makes the task much harder and, together with email regulations, means that implementing a campaign can be fraught with difficulties.

The two main issues that need to be considered with any e-mail marketing campaign are firstly, how to get through any spam filters to reach the recipient, and secondly to provide relevant content and offers in a timely manner so as not to damage the business brand through negative responses from the market.

Marketing e-mails can now be easily perceived in the same manner as the ‘junk mail’ tag attached to direct mailings, by antagonising recipients if they perceive no relevance to them, but also the sheer volumes of ‘spam’ and the ability of recipients to instantly delete e-mails, either through a filter or from their inbox, makes it all the more difficult to achieve good response rates, despite the lower set-up and mailing costs.

Recent statistics indicate a steady decline in the ‘open rates’ of e-mails, dropping from 36.8% in 2004 to 29.4% during the same period in 2005. Yet apparently over 65% of UK companies are planning to increase their activity in e-mail marketing this year, which will make it even harder for messages to get noticed.

A survey published by Revolution this month indicated that 40% of UK companies who are using e-mail were not pre-testing any core elements before sending out bulk e-mail campaigns. The perception remains that e-mail is a low-cost marketing technique and therefore the testing and segmentation principles of direct mail, for example, are not being used to the same level. But what damage could poorly targeted e-mails be doing to the brand, particularly if they are perceived as ‘spam’?

E-mail management and tracking software is essential when managing any e-mail marketing campaign, as this can show ‘open rates’ and clicks on links within the e-mail, as well as ‘bounce’ rates and unsubscribes – all of which are key measures to help understand how good the mailing lists are, or the creative effectiveness of the e-mail at generating a responses, not just immediately but over a longer period of time.

Find out more with our list of tips for developing an e-mail marketing campaign, or contact us if you’d like to discuss e-mail marketing in more detail, or to set-up a new campaign.

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