Over the years I have implemented automated programs and experienced the extraordinary results they can deliver – from cost saving and improved engagement to higher customer satisfaction levels. However marketing automation magic cannot be conjured up through software alone, and I would argue that the magic is not in its ostensibly “fast and easy-to-implement” software. I think the magic comes from within the tests and learnings within your existing email programs.

When driven by a solidly built customer-focused relationship marketing strategy, marketing automation can be a profitable lead generation and management device combining insight, processes and technology that helps to scale your lead management program. Sure, it can be super speedy to get up and running (ask any software vendor); it can include seemingly cool social behavioural insights and of course it can show results quickly. However getting there is anything BUT speedy, cool and quick (ask any revenue-focused marketer). One of my favourite no-nonsense blog posts last year is from Marketing Profs.: “Planning, detailed execution, and a thorough analysis are key to success. It’s not magic. You can’t just snap your fingers and “poof”― all your marketing campaigns and drip sequences have been put into place.” I couldn’t agree more.

So how do you create Marketing Automation Magic?

Try looking inside your long-running email marketing program. For some time now digital marketing mavens have been foretelling the demise of email marketing in favour of social sharing routes and yet, email is the very foundation and channel by which marketing automation is powered. Need convincing? Take a look at these statistics: Twitter sees about 140 million tweets per day. Email? 188 billion messages. And according to data from Forrester’s Q1 2011 North American B2B Technology Marketing Tactics and Benchmarks Online Survey, email marketing still ranks fifth in a range of 21 tactics that marketing professionals deploy to attract, engage, and persuade customers along the buying lifecycle. Therefore, understanding the behaviours generated by your past email newsletters and by analysing test and learn program results, marketing automation implementations can deliver real results quicker.

You’ve probably been sending monthly email newsletters regularly and have a wealth of information and learnings dating back years. Don’t treat your marketing automation implementation and your email marketing activities as mutually exclusive. Use the vast knowledge and insight sitting in your existing email marketing tool. For example, knowledge of the right format that drives the best results is just one of the insights that should be drawn into your marketing automation plan. If you have been advancing your email marketing program over the last couple of years, you already have insights to drive best-in-class automation:

• Mobile usage across your customer base
• Social interactions and behaviours
• Website behavioural metrics
• Timing and content insights by customer segment
• Revenue generators by content segment

An excellent case study is Citrix’s Anti-newsletter Strategy that employed learnings from their email marketing program and applied them to their automation program. What they learned from their quarterly email newsletter helped drive success in their automation efforts.

There’s no doubt there is a change afoot in the email marketing industry. Despite  all the best practice mantras (“must segment more”, “this year we won’t look like spammers”)  it is becoming plainly clear there is a divide growing between those who have stuck to their New Year resolutions and those who have not. Email is becoming the strongest digital media channel deployed by the modern marketer, but to make the most of it, you need to know more than how to push the “spam now” button.

The email channel has arrived with many businesses now acknowledging the importance of the channel to their business model. But despite the importance of the media, there has not been uniform treatment when allocating budgets..

This has been borne out in the recent DMA email benchmark report, that concluded there are “two classes of email marketer; those sending simple campaigns and those splitting lists into multiple segments” concluding ”A major divide has opened”.

The “haves” and the “have nots”

The latest Marketing Sherpa email benchmark report backed up this class system, but seemed to suggested the reason for lack of budget was due to some marketers not being able to justify (or measure) overall ROI. It also suggested that the segment of marketers who were investing liberally were in a “strategic phase of maturity” where they could measure ROI and segment effectively.  Unfortunately the research also revealed only 36% of the companies surveyed measure response by list segment and just33% measure revenue per email .

So it would seem that those organisations investing heavily in email marketing, are those that are best able to measure its ROI and effectiveness, and are best placed to know is value. So, how do you get your email marketing to the strategic phase? And what moves can be made to pitch for extra budget to drive the revenue the email channel can really generate?

Measure email’s influence across multiple channels

Trying to convince the board to allocate more budget to a media that is cheap, that you don’t need to invest much money in to get a return, is tough.

As email marketers, we’ve probably all sat round tables where we have discussed spikes in call centre activity and website traffic following an email campaign. The problem is proving these increases in activity come from email. If these revenue streams are not attributed to email (at least in some part), the budget for developing the media further will never be available.

So, mirroring the findings of the Marketing Sherpa report, if you want achieve more budget for your email campaigns, you need to make sure you are measuring its true value.

The value of Influence

I know it’s a bit of a contentious subject in some circles, but the value of email communication moves far beyond the last bit of revenue that was attributed to the last email sent (and last click). it’s the measurement of that value that provides the greatest challenge for the modern marketer. Over the last couple of years I have noticed that when you directly relate a person’s revenue value, against their open and click behaviour, they relate very closely. So closely in fact, that in some instances 80% of online and offline sales will come from the customers who are regularly and recently opening and clicking your emails. An interesting thought; this means someone who opens and clicks an email, is worth more than one who doesn’t. Factor that one into the equation when working out the value of your email list, and you soon see the people who open and click emails are worth far more than those that don’t (10+ times the value is not uncommon).

Segmenting for Influence

If the recipient is reading your emails, they can be influenced. If they can be influenced, you can encourage them to buy more. And that’s the important difference; if you are only attributing last click revenue to the email channel, it will be reflected in a restricted budget. If you can attribute email’s influence on overall sales, you are more likely to get the money to achieve the greatest returns from email.

Why is this important now?

Thanks to the global economic slowdown, there will be less money in the customer’s pockets and the fight for conversion will be a tough one. Thanks to channel migration, (offline to online) online sales have been growing for several years, sometimes in the face of reducing overall sales.  This growth cannot continue and soon it will be back to the slog of battle for market share. Email will be a key weapon in the marketer’s armoury and your strategy and tactics will either be pulling customers from your competitors or they will be pushing them the other way.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Karin Von Abrams’s* perspective of the DMA benchmark report;

“Time, effort and insight can partially compensate for lack of financial resources. But companies that don’t find either time or money to devote to their email campaigns may soon face the consequences. It probably won’t be too pleasant at the bottom of a two-tier email marketplace.”

*Karin Von Abrams, Senior Analyst, eMarketer

Football Manager, Kevin Keegan can (but doesn’t) claim to be a better manager than Bill Shankley based upon Management Win statistics.  (Shankly won 49.95% of his games as manager, while Keegan won 50.47% ).

In a Digital world the volume and range of numbers can be used by Marketers in a variety of ways. If you look at the Andrew Lang quote “He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts…for support rather than illumination” there are some basic rules to follow to help you quoting email SUPPORT numbers rather than to drive tactics to achieve your business strategy  -

1. Gather lots of data & present many metrics but only highlight the metrics that are positive. “Our  open rate was up 3.2% compared with last month …… but don’t ask about our unsubscribes”
2. Show metrics that are easy to manage / manipulate over business importance – “Our deliverability rate is up 12% …… we only emailed recent subscribers”
3. Use extremely precise numbers and reference 3rd parties to add credibility – “Our open rate is 5.43% more than DMA / IAB / Esp (*delete as appropriate) quoted industry average” …….. rather than compare like for like performance.
4. Use comparisons, but out of context “We got a click through to open rate of 30% up 5% ……. but the actual volume of click throughs was lower than previously”.
5. Show your metrics inconsistently ……. It will stop people comparing effectively if you are adding value.

Whatever you do don’t educate your audience on the small number of key drivers for your business e.g. the health of your email database because

• If you do this will mean that you will have to define an email strategy
• If you start showing simple consistent clear metrics against targets then it is easier it is for the audience to grasp and work out how to think about your email data.
• They then may even ask for it more frequently and request the same data in the same format.
• It will ruin any future ability to keep your metrics “feel good!”

However it may help highlight what is important e.g. maintaining & growing the engagement with your subscribers through better segmented communications.

Just in case they do ask try this:

• Break your database into 3 segments – email addresses that have opened an email in the past month, those who last opened an email over a month ago but in the last 3 months & the rest.
• Give the three segments different values  e.g. £10, £3, & 10p
• Calculate how much your database is worth
• In a month’s time do the same again and compare the difference.

This simple Specific, Measurable, Agreed,  Realistic, Time Bound approach may help you on the journey to SMART email metrics – Alternatively  just stumble over to the Lamp-post.

As a well-known sceptic of the less email = more revenue theory, I have always found it puzzling and somewhat insulting that members of the anti-frequency brigade assume that anyone who follows my advice will by definition simultaneously shut down their brains and start sending 100’s of completely pointless, ugly emails containing terrible offers or irrelevant content; while everyone who follows their advice will automatically start sending out works of art and be given a knighthood for their creative genius.

That’s just stupid!

What I advocate is that everyone who increases send frequency ALSO significantly improves their creative, targeting, offers and analytics. My point is simple – most companies expect their email
program to at the very least pay for itself. And to get budget or funding or additional resource you need to generate the cash to pay for it.

By far the cheapest way to do that in the short term is to increase frequency.

You then have a choice be stupid, bank the cash and send more and more crap or irrelevant email OR maintain or continue to  increase frequency for the long-term by re-investing the gain in GROWING your list and/or trying to deliver more value or as some would prefer “relevant” emails.

The inconvenenient truth is that all things being equal a 2nd email a month sent to the same list (even a resend to non-openers) will ALWAYS beat 1 email a month however well targeted and is without doubt quicker and cheaper to do.

The biggest returns in email come in order of priority from (again all things being equal and you don’t do anything stupid):

1. List size

2. Mailing Frequency

3. Offer value

4. Segmentation and Targeting

5. Deliverability

If I was to advise a client that wanted to increase their investment in email how to spend their money that’s what I would tell them. I would also point out that while frequency is the quickest and cheapest win, it is the most likely to suffer from diminishing returns and the most dependent on investment in the other tactics.

Ours is the only channel that promotes itself by telling the world less is more and that 1 email a year is better than 12. Can you imagine Radio and TV telling the world that 1 slot a night is better than 2 or Google telling you that to be effective you should buy less keyword or banners?

Take it from me a, marketer who tries to get customers and prospects to enjoy receiving more email will be more successful than one who spends time and money trying to find a way to grow their business by sending less email!

If you don’t believe that simple truth here is a simple test – go ahead and significantly reduce your email send frequency and see if any of your competitors follow suit.

Then start updating your cv.

If I had a pound for every time I’ve been asked about the death of email marketing, I’d be “on the cover of Forbes Magazine, smiling next to Oprah and the Queen” (to steal lyrics from the Travie McCoy/Bruno Mars song). Basically, I’d be a billionaire.

Instead, I’m constantly coming up with new ways to answer this question and am always on the look-out for research, statistics, trends and other evidence that will finally convince the world at large that email is here to stay. Rather than cite some of the quantitative evidence I’ve compiled (and there’s a lot), here is something a bit more qualitative, but no less meaningful.

If you were ever in doubt that email is even more relevant now that is was 15 years ago and isn’t going anywhere any time soon, perhaps this will change your mind:

• Email is worth preserving: A recent article in the Independent described an acquisition by the British Library of poet Wendy Cope’s archive, including a collection of approximately 40,000 emails, which it paid over $32,000 for, representing the largest electronic acquisition in its history. Despite Cope’s admission that some of the emails are “not interesting at all,” their combined value is in their ability to show Cope’s more informal thoughts and feelings that may have been omitted from other forms of communication, like letters. As the article’s author so rightly points out, “Letters show us in our best frock; emails will show our underbelly—our peeves, our crushes our irritations.” Email is clearly engrained in the way we communicate and manage our personal relationships.
• There’s an app for that. This phrase no longer just applies to mobile. Major webmail providers are allowing developers to create applications specifically for the inbox to create a richer email experience for users. My colleague, Tom Sather, does a great job of highlighting some of the more innovative apps in his regular “Weekly Roundup” blog postings. Some of the cooler apps out there include:

1. Other Inbox: This tool allows you to automatically organize your inboxes (primarily at Yahoo and AOL) based on priority and category. You also get a daily digest of everything you’ve received by category with the most important messages highlighted for you. It’s basically like having a personal assistant file everything into customized folders (created by you) so that your inbox is less cluttered.
2. Sane Box: This tool provides a similar benefit. It uses your existing contacts, email interactions and your social networks to determine what messages are a priority. It also aims to prevent false positives by monitoring your spam folders for messages that you actively signed up for. 
3. AwayFind: This tool lets you automate your inbox by having an alert sent when you receive an important email.  You have the option of receiving a mobile text message or having your inbox call you and read the messages you’ve received. 
4. ToneCheck. This tool actually reviews the tone of your email messages to help you send email that is less offensive or “emotionally charged.” Designed as a plug-in for Outlook, you’ll see a “Tone Alert” indicator at the bottom of your message that will alert you when the message falls outside of your predetermined tolerance level.

• Email is art. The Aubin Gallery in Shoreditch is currently exhibiting a show called “Authorized.” The artist, James Howard, uses email to create posters and screenings of digital collages from imagery in his huge personal archive of JPEGs, animated GIFs and other screen shots culled from spam messages and junk mail.

So, do you still think email is dead or have I put this topic to bed once and for all?

In September’s Infobox:

• I examine the coming of age of ‘socialised’ emails
• Return Path’s Richard Gibson looks at email marketers’ differing attitudes towards deliverability
• Guy Hanson of The Database Group spells out why email personalisation matters
• Riaz Kanani of Lyris passes his verdict on Groupon’s daily email campaign

To read the full September Infobox, click here

Tomorrow Gmail will be launching its new Gmail Priority Inbox – where it sorts your emails for you and prioritises your emails based on what you read and what you reply to.

Gmail has always had a very intelligent spam filter which you can teach so it learns what you consider to be jnk and what you consider to be of value and this is just taking it one step further – concentrating on the positive side (valuable emails) rather than the negative side (spam).

You can read more about it here (including a cute explanatory video) .

Email errors can be  a turnoff – don’t let mistakes affect your response

Even in the age of textspeak, instant messaging and social media chitchat, people still care about quality control in communications of an even slightly more formal nature. They may write “lol” and “CU tonite @ 8” on facebook or their mobile, but they don’t like it when spelling mistakes and errors creep into a letter from the energy company or even a restaurant menu. Or, come to that, a marketing email.

In these contexts, poor quality control can quickly undermine brand credibility and – as research repeatedly shows – even lead to loss of business. After all, would you give someone a job who couldn’t spell your name?

Many emails err alike…

Here at Alchemy Worx, we’re up to our necks in email. Hundreds of messages flood into our accounts every day as we monitor what’s going on in the world of email marketing. And guess what? Loads of them contain errors. And loads of those errors are the same. And all of them could easily be avoided.

To err is only human, of course, and often only too understandable. For most marketers, an email send means tight deadlines, quick turnarounds and last-minute changes. All of which can open the door to errors. But none of that will count for anything if a subscriber leaves your list in disgust because you’ve emailed them twice. And got their gender wrong both times. About an offer that’s already expired…

Catching the glitches

So what can be done? Increasingly ESPs are adding tools and functionality to help you avoid sending poorly constructed emails (after all poor emails can upset ISPs – relationships that good ESP rely on). But there are still some areas that even the best software struggles to catch. With our help, you can still fix that glitch and save the day…

How to avoid the top 6 mistakes your Email platform won’t spot

We all talk about the power of email marketing, but it really comes home to roost where you’re on the end of a bad experience.

Let me set the scene. With summer on the way I decided to buy some plants for my garden. I chose a company I’d never bought from before but had the recommendation badge from a leading horticultural organisation. At first I had good service, they delivered quickly, but the problems arose with my second order. My second order was left on my doorstep and whilst the box clearly said ‘do not tip’, the delivery company had left it on its side resulting in six of my nine plants being damaged.

I went to the website of the company I bought them from and the only way I could get in contact was through completing their website form (not a good start). There wasn’t an email address for them anywhere. So I sent off my complaint and waited and waited. In fact I waited one week and heard nothing even though their website said they would get back to me within two working days.

I did some more digging around and found an email address hidden on the receipt I’d had for the order, so I sent off another complaint and waited and waited. In the intervening time I received an email from one of their other businesses offering me incontinence products. Signing up for emails from the gardening business and get emails from the incontinence business. I was not impressed.

Four days later I sent my complaint email again. This time I had a response and was pleased with how they coped with it. They were mortified and offered to refund the plants that were damaged, so I responded reminding them that six had been damaged. Sadly I’ve heard nothing since and whilst I’ve emailed I’m a little lost and disappointed that having chased and chased and chased communication has fallen off a cliff.

Email marketing is a powerful communication tool. It can build positive customer experiences and long standing relationships. However, it can also destroy them very quickly. Use it wisely.

Jonathan Burston, Director

Customer Solutions Group, CACI

 The wintry weather has given us all plenty of un-expected “down-time”, whether waiting in hope on snowy station platforms or huddled around an open fire with our families. Rather than succumb to the clutches of Cabin Fever I have been thinking about the “big wins” that treating customers differently delivers email marketers. With that in mind, here are some suggestions for treating people differently to reflect their unique registration, transaction and click-stream profiles.

Acquisition tools – if you’re renting data, ask the list owner what variables they hold and then deliver different versions of the same message. For BtoB that should be different subject lines, opening paragraphs and calls to action based on “job function” or “industry sector”. For consumers you may know their lifestyle and affluence from geo-demographic variables that list owners like Acxiom hold…have different propositions for less affluent and older prospects or use a different creative for young professionals. Let you imagination run free!

Conversion - as digital marketers we sit on the most valuable real-time prospect data so let’s use it. Who clicked on an email link but did not complete a successful outcome? Who looked at deep product pages on your site but did not buy? These re-marketing campaigns should deliver 4-16 better conversion rates than one-size-fits-all messages so start building them.

Retention – send different message programmes to your newer customers, or have a different tone of voice for purchasers of specific products. Build “personas” to help with your tone of voice, imagery and calls to action.

Re-activation – how do you know when you’ve lost a customer? Probably when they’ve not bought for a specific time period. So develop a “win back” programme with the first message triggered by a “date of last purchase is more than 60 days”. And be relevant…”we’ve noticed that you have not bought from us for a little while….” is a good start.

These are certainly not new or radical ideas, but it is surprising how few campaigns in my in-box are trying to follow these rules. Now that the dust has settled at the end of a demanding 2009, and whilst UK PLC is slumbering in icy grasp of winter, we should be using this precious time to develop relevant, engaging segmentation and personalisation strategies. Happy New Year!

Chris Combemale and David Hughes, Co-founders The Email Academy