Editorial Articles

Despite its predicted growth, from $11.9 billion in 2008 to $27.8 billion by 2013, the gulf between those brands which create truly targeted and revenue driving email markting campaigns and that don't is enormous.

Given how long email and the concept of eCRM has been around by rights, I should be out of a job. Everybody knows how to ‘do’ email marketing; you fill a page with lots of pretty pictures, bind it together with some copy and send it to everybody who’s on your mailing list. Then sit back and wait for… nothing to happen.

And there’s the rub: when I started in eCRM in 1998 people were so excited to get any mail that everything was opened and read. Gaining customer engagement through email now is a far trickier task. In an environment populated by (over) zealous ESP filters, exponential increases in mail volumes and 90% SPAM the game has become much tougher. The goal of achieving the 47 to 1 return-on-investment that email can bring is one many brands struggle to achieve.

To my mind though, the real issue doesn’t lie with the environment. Correct adherence to registration processes, email builds, ESP blacklists and the like should see that your message gets through. The most pressing point is that far too many brands are still giving subscribers what they want them to have: not what their subscribers actually want. Broadcast emails which shower registrants with product and content for which they have no use, or interest, remain the norm. These in turn lead to SPAM and unsubscribe buttons being clicked in hasty abundance.

Back in the days when DM was king such behaviour was, if not recommended, then at least considered excusable. The cost of creating targeted versions of print was prohibitive to all but the most successful and margin-heavy publishers. But in these days of active content tools, detailed customer activity metrics and virtually non-existent delivery fees it’s a situation that is no longer tolerable.

With the advent of web 2.0 and now social media a new era of communication was born: one which held the concept of engagement and interaction at its heart. Here again email should be leading the way but too often – even for some of the biggest brands in the digital market – the opportunity is left begging. Take Tesco for instance. As an occasional buyer from their online wine club I should be receiving newsletters that a) tell me about wines that should, give my past purchases, be to my taste and b) ask me to tell them what I thought of the wines I’d had.

And how many marks out of two do Tesco score on this test? That’s right, zero! Tesco – whose direct marketing insight allows them to send me DM coupons against wine – continue to email offers for wines I would only use to clean the drains and have never once asked me to share my opinions with a waiting wine club world. Were they to do this I could wax lyrical about their splendid ’06 Cairanne whilst bawling them out for having run out without alerting me to low stock. They could then respond to this, softening my attitude towards them whilst allowing them to recommend some alternatives which, having tasted, I would happily comment upon. Up, up, up the advocate ladder I would climb - and the more of my hard-earned cash they would see.

But, I hear you cry, all this takes time. Yes, it does: but far less time than constantly having to hunt for new subscribers and explain to boss or board why digital revenues aren’t what they might be. And if the above weren’t reason enough to start engaging with your customers through targeted, personalised content let us not forget that the game is about to get a whole lot harder…

Two major changes are a foot. The first comes courtesy of your friendly neighbourhood ESP. After years of tacitly watching what your mutual customers do with the mails they receive they are soon going to start filtering according to these actions. So if your mails are landing and being consistently ignored then, opted in or not, you’ll soon find yourself automatically landing in the SPAM graveyard.

The other is that many brands are starting to ask themselves the salient question, if they’re not talking to their customers, who is? One of the biggest drivers to my professional door is brands either fearing or reacting to rivals attempting to start relationships with the people they care about. And you know what, they should be worried. With eCRM spending set to rise to $28 billion in 2013 from $12 billion in 2008 the world is finally listening. Twitter and other social media have raised the profile of customer-brand communication like never before and as email offers an effective method of targeted two way comms, its day in the digital sun looks like it has finally arrived.

Giles Luckett
Director of eCRM, Soup Digital