Email marketers increase focus on customer emails

The latest National Email Benchmarking Report covering Q2 2008 was published this month by the Direct Marketing Association this month. 

Acquisition campaigns accounted for 18% of the total (down from 24% in the previous year) with 82% of email campaigns targeted to customers.

This reflects that delivery rates and email marketing ROI is higher for customer campaigns than acquisition especially for cold lists. 

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

UK internet advertising spend was the only medium to grow in 2008

In the Advertising Association's latest quarterly report on UK adspend, overall spend was down 3.9% year on year. In Q4, 2008, the decline was larger at 9.6% compared with the previous year. 

All media spend (except for internet) declined with newspapers down 12% & magazines down 9.9%.

Internet advertising was the star performer with adspend up 17.3% year on year.

These figures show that when times get tough and advertising needs to deliver a good marketing ROI, online is the place to be.

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

New report shows email marketing gives best ROI

Econsultancy in association with Adestra have just published  their Email Marketing Census 2009. 78% of respondents rated email marketing's return on investment (ROI) as excellent or good which is an increase from 66% last year. This makes email marketing the highest rated digital marketing channel for ROI.

The report highlights that not everyone is following best practice with only 18% of respondents knowing what percentage of email budget is lost through non-delivery.  

And 44% of company respondents say that their email marketing is hampered by the lack of an effective strategy. There have never been so many ways to market and so many ways to waste money. Email marketing should definitely be an area of focus if you want to cost effectively attract and keep valuable customers in 2009. However, to maximise success it needs to be part of an joined up marketing strategy.

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

How event triggered email marketing improves marketing ROI

In the current recession, life is tough for many companies:-

• marketing budgets and resources are under increased pressure
• in most markets there are numerous competitors
• customers are suffering advertising fatigue & cynicism
• 'outward bound' response rates (especially in traditional channels) are reducing

Yet the challenge for most companies is to grow customer lifetime value by keeping valuable customers and improving their web marketing return on investment (ROI). 

Good marketers have always strived to get the right message (using the right channel) to the target prospect / customer at the right time. With conventional media like radio, press, direct marketing etc, this involves huge wastage as many of the people that you are paying to reach are not likely to be in the market for your product / service at that point in time.  This led major FMCG advertisers to advertise frequently but few companies can afford to do this anymore. So unless the marketing is first rate, much of today's traditional advertising fails to deliver the results business needs.

Traditional advertisers are switching more of their budget to web marketing 

For example, Google PPC enables advertisers to reach target prospects who are actively searching for their product or service and with one click can take them straight to a compelling message. Advertisers only pay when  the ad is clicked regardless of how many other people have been shown their ad thus reducing wastage.

Triggered event email marketing 

This involves sending a specific email to an individual being triggered by a specific event such as:-

• customer life stage trigger - e.g. new baby; retirement; marriage; birthday; empty nester
• customer life cycle trigger - e.g. new customer cross sell;  end of contract / membership 
• transaction behaviour trigger - e.g. cross sell ink cartridges to people who bought printers; lack of activity
• customer initiated trigger - e.g. inbound interaction; online behaviour
• external trigger - e.g. change in interest rates; competitor action; regulatory; 

Key learning for companies large or small

• Consider using triggered email marketing as part of a joined up web strategy
  
• What would be the most relevant triggers for your prospect / customer segments?
• What would be the most compelling message for each trigger?
• Have you got a smart email system that enables multiple trigger emails to be automatically sent to target individuals?
• Can your email system send personalised, dynamic content with great reporting capability?
• What are the desired objectives for each trigger?
• Analyse your web metrics performance  
• Find out what's working and what isn't and refine the campaign.

If you need help then contact a web marketing expert.

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

Is the rest of your business letting your website down?

In a previous blog, I wrote about how UK retailers were relying on the internet for sales growth. However, some companies traditional business processes compromise their website performance.

Recently, I wanted to buy a personal video recorder (PVR) & one of the websites I looked at was Richer Sounds. The price for my chosen product was OK and the web copy said 'Save delivery costs, pick up today.' I had a meeting scheduled in Bristol a few days later (where they have a store) & considered this as an option. 

I telephoned the store to check if they had the product in stock and received a voice message saying they were busy doing other things. I called back 4 times and received the same message. I gave up and bought the product from somewhere else.

If they were to analyse their web metrics, it would show that my web visits failed to convert to a web sale. From a retail perspective, this would imply the website is not working properly. However, the reason for the 'failed sale' was that the store didn't answer the phone. Whatever the reason it affected their web marketing return on investment (ROI)

Key learning for companies large or small

• do you regularly review your website performance against agreed objectives? 
  
• do your non-web operations support or compromise your website performance?
• if your telephone support is below par what alternatives are available? - e.g. Argos enable shoppers to check stock & reserve products using an automatic telephone service & online

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.