Blogs

Having just finished MediaPost’s Email Insider Summit in Park City, Utah, I can say that the email marketing industry is definitely being impacted by the recession. However, not in the way that traditional advertising and trade shows are… email marketing is rising. Apparently, senior management was listening when marketers touted email’s high ROI, because now everyone wants a piece of email – and they want more of it.

The marketers at this event were the heads of email for major brands, including Marriott International, Overstock.com and Turner Broadcasting/CNN. General consensus was that the demand for email marketing within their respective organizations is increasing, and they’re challenged with determining how to satisfy the sharp rise in demand from the various divisions and departments that they service, without burning out their list through increased volume.

As Aaron Smith of Smith-Harmon recently pointed out in MediaPost’s Email Insider Newsletter, email volumes have already skyrocketed, increasing competition for Inbox real-estate. In 2009, it will be more important than ever for email marketers to focus on optimizing their email marketing programs to achieve more with less. Keeping a close eye on contact frequency and email attrition rates will be paramount, as will clearly communicating the value of your email list in business terms order to manage internal expectations. Bob Frady of Live Nation gave an excellent presentation on this topic. By communicating the aggregate purchasing power of their opt-in list to senior management instead of what resulted from email click-throughs, he was able to raise email’s visibility and importance within his organization to a must have for every tour and a significant driver of revenue for his organization.

In addition to optimizing contact frequency and internal communication, marketers should look to Transactional Email inventory as a potential way to alleviate the demand for stand-alone promotions. Transactional Email is opened more than any other email communication, and that valuable real estate should be leveraged for targeted cross-sell and up-sell offers.

With a little creativity and a lot of elbow grease, we have the opportunity to prove email’s value in tough economic times and gain a seat at the marketing strategy table.

Last week, we officially launched Strategic Services here at email service provider StrongMail! This is an especially exciting time for me, as my team has been working long and hard to put together the solid programs that we’re now offering to our customers. The effort began by taking a fresh look at the biggest challenges that e-marketers were having with their email programs that went beyond just general concerns. We interviewed our clients for their feedback and probed deep into their programs to discover execution challenges that they didn’t even know existed. Based on our extensive we research, we developed the following programs that span migration from an ESP or custom solution to an extensive program audit and training in best practices:

• StrongMove expedites and manages the transition of existing email programs to StrongMail, whether from an ESP or custom in-house solution. This includes the migration of data and creation of streamlined connections to all lists, unsubscribes, opt-outs, links, templates and other program features, thereby ensuring proper setup for optimal performance.

• StrongResults audits a company’s marketing and transactional email marketing programs from start to finish with in-depth analysis and recommendations for optimizing program elements to meet business objectives, including messaging, design, list segmentation and proper testing strategies.

• StrongPractices provides authoritative training on email marketing best practices that are customized to each client’s unique business model and establishes the foundation for implementing and maintaining a successful email strategy, including deliverability tactics, sender reputation and CAN-SPAM compliance.

In addition to these three programs, we also offer creative services and strategic planning to cover all the other things you’re looking for from your email service provider.. I’ve been fortunate enough to build a passionate team of experts that span the globe, so no matter how big or small your project is, we can help. Oh, and since we have team members in several international time zones, we can quickly respond to clients with tight deadlines. For example, if you happen to submit a request for a minor template edit at 4pm EST, our UK team can do the work and have it waiting for you when you get in the next morning.

Things like that get me so excited about being a part of the team at email service provider StrongMail. With my experienced team and the resources at our disposal, we have the ability to design effective programs that help e-marketers overcome real-world challenges.

To give you an example of the ways that we look to optimize our clients’ email programs, I am going to use this blog to do regular, informal critiques of email templates sent in by readers. For each critique, I will do a free high-level review and offer my thoughts to how it compares with the numerous templates we review each day. I plan on doing about 3 – 4 reviews a month, so send in yours today for consideration. You can email your template to strategy@strongmail.com.

I look forward to sharing these template reviews in future posts.