Spark

What is the future of email? A very loaded question!

I was recently browsing through some of my favorite marketing and email blogs and came across a post from Campaign Monitor. Towards the end of the article they asked a very good, but loaded question. The question is; Where do you see email going in the future? Of course I have a million ideas of where I think email is going, but to keep things simple I kept my response short.

Here was my response:

Wow!!! Where is email going? I think that is a loaded questions, but a good one. I see email continuing to grow as a mechanism for transactional, and 1-to-1 messaging. I can also see email becoming behavioral based, and more integrated with SMS and other mobile messaging platforms.

With analytics, 4D modeling, advanced segmentation, dynamic web pages, and applications becoming smarter, email can be a powerful mechanism for communication more and more targeted messages to consumers or other businesses. With technologies becoming more advanced and easier to use. Email can hold its position in the internet marketing space. After all compared to other forms of communication email is still a baby. As email matures, businesses and organizations will begin to use email in more and more powerful ways.

Like I said it’s a loaded question, and I’m sure many people have their opinions. That’s just my two clicks.

My question to you is; understanding how sophisticated email and internet marketing has become, what related industry (analytics, behavior based applications, social computing etc.) will run parallel and grow with email? Just a sidebar, let me know what you think.

-Justin

Posted in Email Marketing, Industry Tools, e-Marketing Strategy, web analytics | No Comments »

After the click: Why email and analytics go hand and hand

OK, lets just hop right into this one. It’s simple really. You have a company, you have a product and you have a website. You use CPC, banner ads, affiliate marketing and many other marketing vehicles to get people to your website, but none of those really matter unless you can understand exactly what happens after a visitor clicks on a banner, or finds your site via their favorite search engine. Ok now you are probably asking yourself; “Well shouldn’t I track and measure everything with analytics?” Well if you know anything about me, you would know that my initial response is “OF COURSE!” Using web analytics with email marketing is a little more special. The great thing about email marketing is that each recipient on your list is essentially their own unique identifier. This means that you can begin to track and measure down to a single user, and then aggregate behaviors to profile your users and market to them with even more precision. This makes analytics and email a powerful combination. The fact is email marketing is one of the most measurable methods of online marketing, and with many of the web analytics tools out there, setting up a campaign and tracking recipient behavior is simple. So you have to ask yourself what pieces of information am I missing out on if you don’t have web analytics enabled during your next email marketing campaign. With these two tools you don’t have to have some robust membership management system or expensive lead generation application, to drive and qualify leads. At least not yet. Instead you can use website behavior data from your email marketing campaigns to gain insight into what, why, and how users use the information on your website. Take a minute to think about it, if you are investing time, energy, and money into your email marketing programs, wouldn’t you want to take the time understand what happens after the click?

Posted in Email Marketing, e-Marketing Strategy, web analytics | No Comments »

Part I: Understanding your audience - More than just translations

A while back I briefly discussed some of the things you may want to consider when taking your email marketing international. I could dive into the obvious differences and probably should provide you with some back story but for now I will just get straight to the point.

When considering your international email marketing strategy, the first thing to consider is your audience. After all we’re not talking about your neighbors or even someone who lives within your local community. We are talking about an audience that speaks multiple languages, is built on different principles, has a culture all its own, uses the web in many different ways and most importantly will likely interact with your company differently than most of your domestic customers.

Because of these differences I have put together, what I believe to be, the top five questions you may want to ask yourself when you begin to write your copy and designing your email creative. Hopefully this will allow you to define a more effective strategy, for your international email campaigns.

1. How does my international audience use email? (How frequently should I email my international customer base?)
2. How does my company currently interact with my international customer base? (Online only, via one-to-one communications, website feedback loops, etc.)
3. What cultural differences should I consider when designing my layout? (What works for some, may not work for others)
4. What are the laws around SPAM in countries outside of the US? (Stay legit, some countries carry rules that are tighter than the US)
5. How will I track, measure and manage my email metrics once my email is deployed?

Of course there are many others, and this assumes that you have already asked yourself, the important questions like; “How do I measure my ROI?”, or “What are the goals and objectives of my email campaign?” Hopefully this will simply get the conversation going in your marketing department, or when you sit down with your sales team to discuss your global sales and marketing tactics. It’s important to remember that understanding the differences between your US customer base and your international customer base will determine your success in the international email marketing space. Let me know what you think, did I leave something out, what else would you add to the list?

Next up I’ll cover, Part II: Going International - The message and the delivery. In this portion of the series I will review some of the design principles and standards you may want to consider, and how to find basic demographic information about your international recipients.

Until next time,
Cheers

Posted in Email Marketing, International Marketing | No Comments »

Social Networking Sites Killing Email?

Ok ESPs, inbox providers and ISPs, relax. Email is just fine, I just wanted to get your attention, but you should still pay close attention to the question. Here’s an excerpt captured from a recent article I read;

For the first time last month, traffic to social networks overtook traffic to web-based email services in the UK. Top networks Facebook, Bebo and MySpace took 5.17% of all UK Internet visits, with only 4.98% going to email services including Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Gmail.

If you pay close attention you will see that this took place in the UK, where email already gives way to SMS, but I have to wonder whether we will see a similar trend in the US. If so, then the first question I have to ask is; How will this shift in communication preference influence eMarketers that use email as a primary point of communication?

Another reason this is particularly interesting, to me, is because I previously wrote a post about how social networks started with email. In that article I made mention to the fact that social networks, were a mashup of web 1.0 technologies, that simply faded away in late last century. This, recent, statistical observation reiterates my point, and raise another very big question; are social networks just the evolution of email, or the Texas sized asteriod that will crash into the Planet Email and kill the now pre-historic communication medium? Ok, i’ll admit it’s a bit dramatic, especially considering email is still a baby compared to other forms of communication. Nonetheless, as technology evolves you have to wonder, does the exponential growth rate of technology mean that we will see the product life cycle of internet technologies become shorter? Or does it simply mean that the product evolution cycle will become more and more obvious. I’m not sure, but there is plenty of room to imagine where this is all going. Just something to think about. What do you think?

Posted in Email Marketing, Social Media, Social Networking | No Comments »

Local seminars coming soon from Big Boom

Big Boom, the idea Group, is proud to announce local e-Marketing seminars in Atlanta. These events will begin in March, and are open to anyone who is interested in learning about e-Marketing. If you own a small to medium sized business, or just want to know what e-marketing is all about, then this is the event for you. We will start with the basics, and hopefully answer all of your questions about; e-mail marketing, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), social media, web analytics and much more. Details to come and registration is required to attend. If you have any preliminary question, please email me us events [at] bbigonline.com

*Updated 3/6/2008
You can now register for e101 by clicking the link below.
http://bbigonline.com/ignite/events/e101

Posted in e-Marketing Education | No Comments »