Recession proof email marketing

The most cost effective and measurable tool to assist in driving your marketing strategy for 2009 is email marketing. No other channel can deliver almost immediate, targeted campaigns direct to your audience at a fraction of the cost of other marketing channels, while delivering a ROI many times the alternatives.

Nielsen Online reported recently 98% of Australian Internet users had engaged with email over a four week period from Jan08-March08 compared to instant messaging (38%), visiting social networking sites (26%) and reading blogs (16%). Certainly these figures highlight the importance of email as a necessary and highly valuable medium for any business.

Here are some of our top ideas for focusing your email marketing objectives for 2009 and fine tuning your current email marketing strategy. (And if you don’t already have an email marketing strategy read below and find out why you need one!)

Stay fresh

One of the obvious advantages of email versus other mediums is the ability to communicate directly with your audience almost immediately. With the use of templates, you can send out a professional, branded piece of communication within minutes.

This kind of speed to market is not possible with other marketing channels. The cost savings in removing the cycle of design, production, printing and delivery all contribute to more money in your budget to spend on other marketing efforts. For a quick win, reinvigorate your eNewsletter with a design makeover.

Keep your finger on the pulse

Keep a close eye on your competitors’ activity by subscribing to their eNewsletters. Conduct your own competitive research by simply keeping a close eye on your inbox. Take note of what others are doing well in their emails and use their communication as a learning tool to assess your own.

Are they using more creative subject lines? Do they have a stronger call to action in the preview pane (the top portion of the email)? Do you find their communication easier to read and understand than your own? Is the call to action visible even if you haven’t enabled images?

Set some goals

Email marketing is targeted, immediately trackable, and it shows a measurable return on investment. All reasons why many companies are actually increasing email marketing budgets at the expense of more traditional channels such as TV, radio and print. If you’ve been actively emailing your members for a while - now is the time to use this information to analyse your user behaviour and highlight opportunities for maximising your ROI.

Subject lines can be a key measure in driving successful open and clickthrough rates, as is the importance of user-centric design. Analyse your results and discover what connects with your audience. The information is all there in your campaign report history.

Take control

Email marketing allows you to stay in constant contact with clients and customers and thus build trust, loyalty and brand awareness. A dedicated email marketing platform such as Campaign Master, plus the knowledge and experience of industry professionals, puts this powerful tool in your hands and allows you to take control of your company’s e-communications – freeing the need to engage with expensive advertising agencies, printers or designers in order to get your message out.

It's time to get personal

As the most familiar form of digital communication, marketers can use email to focus on personal, tailored messages for the greatest return. Resist the temptation to send out general broadcast emails to your entire database and instead focus on sending relevant, targeted messages. Give your subscribers the tools to tell you what they want to hear and include progressive profiling as part of your subscription strategy to gain more useful insights into your members.

You will soon see, through enhanced database profiling, email marketing is more than simply a way to push your promotions to your customers – it allows you to open up a direct relationship with each member. This improves your customer response to your messages, but more importantly builds brand trust.

In the current down cycle this is probably the most powerful tool you have to retain customer loyalty and market share and prepare you business to come out of the recession in a stronger position than your competitors.