Email Marketing: Holy Grail or Wholly Hype?

[wenwilder]

The database: keeper of the relationship
Marketers don't need to look too far back in history for the right model for one-to-one marketing. The proverbial local general store ? complete with congenial storekeeper who knew you and your family by name, knew your purchasing habits and preferences, and was able to recommend a new stock item that would be just perfect for your spouse's birthday ? is the model.

The growth of formalized marketing emerged from the need to maintain as much of this "personal touch" with a rapidly growing, geographically dispersed customer base. However, the costs and practicalities of maintaining a highly individualized contact with every one of these customers have been prohibitive. That's where email comes in. In the same way that print-based direct marketing, and telemarketing have allowed marketers to conduct a somewhat personalized dialogue with customers, the Internet has upped the ante. With the growth of email and Web usage has come the ability for marketers to achieve dramatic ROI improvements through lower distribution costs, higher response rates, and the ability to track and analyze the results in real time.

What does this mean in practice for marketers today? Put most simply, "it's a relationship, stupid!" This implies a number of things. First you need to get to know your customers one at a time. You can only do this by first identifying those people who are likely to be interested in your offering, and then opening a dialogue with them. This conversation -- and please note that a dialogue is an interactive process of speaking, listening, and responding -- can take a number of forms. But for the purposes of this discussion our focus is on email as the core medium.

One essential ingredient for successful dialogue is customization. In other words, talk to your customers by name and provide them with a unique message tailored to what you already know about them. Many email delivery systems (whether software applications, or outsourced service providers) provide such capabilities. A rudimentary personalization effort that simply inserts "Dear David" into the beginning of each email message sent to me is not likely to impact my behavior much. However, the company that "remembers" my past purchase history and geographic location, or lets me identify subjects that interest me, is much more likely to be able to use these "explicit preferences" to build a mutually profitable relationship over the coming years. Even more so the company that tracks how I respond to the messages sent to me, and is therefore able to use my "implicit" preferences to further tailor my experience.

The critical component here is a customer database, which is needed to track and store every interaction between an organization and its customers. The database brings with it many benefits including:

• The ability for rich customization of email messages
  
  Response tracking to see what actions were taken, by whom, and when, in response to each message sent
  
  Easy testing of different offers and creative treatments across different customer segments
  
  A "unified" customer view within an organization, whereby each person who has contact with an individual customer can review all previous customer contact points and transactions
  
  Customer "self-service" capabilities for periodic updating of their contact and preferences information

Clearly the ideal situation is to have a single customer database into which all customer interactions are recorded, and from which all outbound communications are generated and coordinated. It doesn't take long to realize that there are very few companies where this ideal is realized! But you can make a start in this direction and ensure that everything you do builds toward this goal.

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[DrTandem1]

This is a sore subject for most. As soon as the words "email" and "marketing" are combined it is magically transformed into "SPAM" in everyone's mind. I'm sure I'm not alone, in that I receive literally hundreds of e-mails each day. Most are filtered out as spam. Some actual e-mail I miss, as they are accidently filtered.

I think most of these mass mailers are falling for the "Get Rich While in Your Pajamas" info-mercial scam run on TV. Many have the identical subject line and content from different senders.

Bottom line: If it's not an opt-in where I actually opted to be receiving the e-mail or it's not from a friend or actual potential client, it is deleted. Much as someone soliciting at my door, snail-mail or telephone, they are unwelcome.

Does anyone really make money from spam? Again, I'm not talking about opt-in customer lists. I'm talking about SPAM!

[obuwebco]

As was stated above, Email marketing does get a bad rap. Being in the business myself, I have tremendous difficulty overcoming the public stigma that stains legitmate email marketing. I spend more time trying to educate the consumer, than pitching the sale 99% of the time.

Quality, Targeted lists, and innovative presentation techniques, are key to the successful execution of email marketing campaigns. We provide a unique delivery and presentation model, when coupled with our quailty lists, we see response and CTR averaging between 10%-15% even as high at 35%.

The problem of SPAM is double-sided. 1. There are less-than-reputable firms that will be happy to blast 5 or 10 million emails out to get a ,001% response rate. 2. The Advertisers and businesses that use these companies are unwilling to invest the time, effort, and dollars to create a successful 100% can-spam act compliant marketing campaign. If the bussiness stop hiring these spammer firms, they will go away.

Bottom line is that responsable, targeted, email marketing, is extremely effective. Have a look at our client list...

Joshua Strebel

[ldyguique]

I receive well over 2500 spam per week. I receive business marketing spam and just the garden variety ridiculous stuff. I have a policy to never EVER under any conditions to ever reply to an unsolicited email. PERIOD. If I have not bought from the company or signed up via their website to be included on a mailing list, it's spam. Since the new law went into effect, I've only received THREE email that was clearly marked as ADV or had an opt-out that actually stayed opted out. I've tested a few, such as Arca-Max.

People are foolish to gamble with their domain reputation by being spammers. Direct mail marketing had its day; however, because it had a direct cost of a combination of the printed materials, the cost of getting it labelled, and the mailing cost itself, it was self-regulating to some degree. Targetted mailing to demographic lists became a critical component. Spam doesn't have any of these associated costs; therefore, it has been and will continue to be abused.

Web businesses are destroying the internet experience for many average consumers due to a combination of issues: spam, popup/unders, cookies, activeX, and spyware. They are truly killing "the goose that laid the golden egg." Buying this past Christmas proved that some people will shop online in preference to storefronts; however, if the "crud" keeps on coming, there may be one or two more seasons such as this past one before people will consider doing anything shopping-wise online simply not worth the ongoing aggravation that it causes.

I start with a clean slate in one month. The email addresses that I've had for over six years will be gone. I will be dealing with my domain ones only. I know EXACTLY each and every member registration that I've done as I will have either logged into my profile and changed it to one of my new addresses, or it's a reasonably new registration.

I will institute a spam blocking program that will automatically delete ANY email from someone not on my list or in my addressbook. I will encourage my customers to do the exact same thing. I will install on their machines every blocking program that I'm aware of to eliminate the noxious nasties that come their way.

[DrTandem1]

"Quality, Targeted lists...CTR averaging between 10%-15% even as high at 35%."

Give me a break. There is no such thing as "quality, targeted lists". 35%??? You just pissed-off 65%! I don't want to be targeted. If what you're selling is something I want, I'll find you.

[AWSMGuy]

Few things invoke such passion as SPAM. A few posts back someone mention 2500 spams a week, try 2500-3000 per day!

I can certainly turn on my server side spam control software, but then as someone else mentioned, I run the risk of the software accidentally deleting important emails also.

So don't give me the "Quality Lists" sales pitch, the majority of those on your list are probably not yet wise enough to do something about you. When they do wise up, you loose a member of your "Quality List". The problem lies in that person is replaced by 20 not yet wise engough newbies.

SPAM is costing all of us millions of hours everyday. Hours from hard working people just trying to keep in touch with friends, family and business contacts. They fall in the same category as unwelcome tele-marketing calls at dinner time, but it is more complicated when trying to hang-up on a spammer.

The only "Quality Lists" are good solid, opt-in with easy sure fired opt-out instructions. Those lists that people choose to and KNOW they are on. If you have these types of "Quality Lists", the above does not apply to you, but to all the others STOP COSTING THE WORLD valuable time we have so little of anyway. If you listen intently, you can hear that last statement falling on deaf ears, but I do feel better having said it.

I do offer a solution, I use a FREE tool that allows me to sift through the garbage, identify spammers from friends, bounce back the garbage, delete on mass and it is all done at the mail server side. I could not function without it!
www.mailwasher.net

[obuwebco]

DrTandem- The proof is in the pudding. Feel free to contract w/ us for your next marketing campaign.

There is a VAST difference between the 20million name lists you can buy out of south florida for $600. And the quailty, opt-in lists that we use, scrubbed weekly to insure integrity.

Every single Email ever sent from our system has a working opt-out feature, which believe it or not, really removes the name from the list.

Like the header of this topic suggested, Data is king. We work very hard to protect the integrity of our data. And that is the reason why we are successful.

Joshua Strebel

[DrTandem1]

obuwebco-

You didn't say they were opt-in lists in your original post. Opt-ins are not considered spam.

[Conficio]

Originally Posted by obuwebco

I spend more time trying to educate the consumer, than pitching the sale 99% of the time.

Hi obuwebco,
a logic defying sugestion, the mass customized e-mail campaignes might be right for you and your prospects. Send them your e-mail newsletter and include the educational blurb of the week, depending on how feightened they are about e-mail marketing .

:-)) But at 10-15% CRT you won't need it :-((

K<o>

[Nargule]

Originally Posted by DrTandem1

Does anyone really make money from spam? Again, I'm not talking about opt-in customer lists. I'm talking about SPAM!

Yes, I'm sure they do. Why else would they keep doing it?

[DrTandem1]

Nargule responds to the question,does anyone make money from sending spam:

<<"Yes, I'm sure they do. Why else would they keep doing it?">>

My answer to my own question: Greed and stupidity/ignorance. They are looking for an easy way to make a fast buck. They saw an infommercial telling them that they could stay home and "make money in their pajamas". So, they sent in their money and got some e-mail software and then were conned into buying lists. Next, they all spam us with the same exact subject line and content.

Everyday they check their mailbox. The one or two orders that trickle into them are enough to keep them buying more canned spam and to send us.

[obuwebco]

canned spam. good word usage :)

[John Glube]

Originally Posted by DrTandem1

This is a sore subject for most. As soon as the words "email" and "marketing" are combined it is magically transformed into "SPAM" in everyone's mind. I'm sure I'm not alone, in that I receive literally hundreds of e-mails each day. Most are filtered out as spam. Some actual e-mail I miss, as they are accidently filtered.

I think most of these mass mailers are falling for the "Get Rich While in Your Pajamas" info-mercial scam run on TV. Many have the identical subject line and content from different senders.

Bottom line: If it's not an opt-in where I actually opted to be receiving the e-mail or it's not from a friend or actual potential client, it is deleted. Much as someone soliciting at my door, snail-mail or telephone, they are unwelcome.

Does anyone really make money from spam? Again, I'm not talking about opt-in customer lists. I'm talking about SPAM!

Dr. Tandem1,

According to a report released last week by the DMA, the American consumer bought 11.7 Billion dollars worth of products and services last year promoted through what the DMA calls non-fraudulent unsolicited commercial email - or what I call "good spam."

For the details, read my post titled Holy Batman Is This For Real?.

John Glube
Toronto, Canada

[Patrick Berry]

Hello all, this is only my second post on this forum and I have spent the last couple of days reading throught past posts, and dug this one out (the thread was started in Feb) ...

ok as a newbie I can see that self created opt in lists are clearly a idea to persue. But I also wish to buy or rent lists, and at the same time avoid the send to 24 million email address type actions.


And it is here that I have problems, I have spent over a week looking for european, asian, and americas lists for specific categories, and have had no success. Is it me, in that buying renting is not a good option, and the you should start from scratch opt in lists in the various web sites i run, or am i missing something ?

[netman4ttm]

I work for a marketing company that currently is senting out 5000 to 20000 email a week on top of 5000 faxes and easily 40000 snail mail.
We violate every law on the books about spam!! The reason. We work for a large number of PAC's and Congress isn't about to cut its own money raising throat. However, we clean our databases against the DMA's do not call lists and their do not email list. Why waste the time money and effort to get an Association's membership mad at their own Political Action Committe. We send out the mail and leave them alone.
Interestingly, members of an organization do not seem to object to unsolicted emails on political issues although they can get really hot when they find out their PAC is working for a candidate they can't stand.