Now is NOT the Time to Stop Emailing
The return on investment (ROI) from email has always surpassed other channels. And, despite the best efforts of saboteurs such as spammers, it seems set to do so for the foreseeable future, according to a new report from the Direct Marketing Association (DMA).
Email’s ROI in 2008 was $45.06 (currently £31.94) for every dollar spent on it, according to the DMA’s annual ”Power of Direct” economic impact study. This compares to $48.34 in 2007, and a projected $43.52 in 2009.
Yet despite these encouraging figures, a new survey by Emailvision reveals that far too many email marketers continue to make simple — and costly mistakes.
“In today’s economy, return on investment has never been more important as marketing spend is now analysed and questioned by senior stakeholders,” said Nick Gold, UK managing director at Emailvision, an email marketing software-on-demand provider.
“Companies can’t afford to be making such simple mistakes and missing potential sales. The fundamental aims of any campaign should be high deliverability, targeted mailing, maximum click-through rates and basic personalisation — don’t let the email be the reason customers go elsewhere.”
What’s more, as competition for the all-important inbox increases more quickly than consumer spending, email relevance and targeting is more important than ever before. So be sure to offer your email recipients products and information they would be interested to hear about. And be selective with your email timings. Don’t just send straight promotional messages every other day. Rather, cut back on the mail-out frequency and give your readers a little bit extra — news they can use, tips and tricks, etc.
In short, get to know and then delight your subscriber list for the best ROI. For now is an ideal time to improve your overall email marketing strategy.
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March 5th, 2009 at 03:59 pm
Hi Tracey, good comments here, something also to add is the importance of subject lines and ‘from ‘ names. In my experience they’re the last things people think about and yet there’s no point spending effort on the message or the targeting if the email doesn’t get opened due to a poor subject line.
March 13th, 2009 at 05:28 pm
Absolutely agree. I wrote a post on this a little while back, or it may have been covered in my newsletter. (It’s Friday afternoon, the end of a very, very long, hard week, so my memory is starting to play tricks on me!).
There has been a lot of research into subject lines, and in particular whether longer or shorter ones work best. The current flavour is to go for shorter ones, but of course it needs to make sense to and interest your readers without sounding or looking like spam. I have tested my own subject lines recently and find that those of about 30-50 characters in length work best. Of course, paying attention to word choice and syntax is important.
As for the ‘from’ line, I always advocate using something that your audience identifies you with (it could be your name, your business name, or the name of your newsletter), and be consistent.