Top five trends in email marketing 2011
by Robert Harnischmacher
Despite the lavish lip service paid to "targeting", email marketers have, to date, been slaves to quantity over quality. The end is near. The end is in 2011.
Email marketing is going mobile
Inevitably, mass emails will be received and read on smartphones. The smaller display gives the sender and the subject line a whole new and far greater significance – and far greater impact. The first two lines of body text, too, must be rethought, reinvented and rejuvenated. This spells the end of irrelevant or simply irritating standard phrases ("If this email does not display correctly…). Those all-important first two lines must deliver the core message and pack a powerful first punch.
Email marketing is becoming increasingly parasitic
The best marketing emails are transaction mails. Information about services, confirmation of shipment and updates on loyalty points are always more likely to catch the eye and the interest of the recipient than run-of-the-mill advertising – and much more likely to elicit that yearned-for response. As a result, email marketing is encroaching on personalized business communications. In 2011, one-to-one marketing is not about mass customization of emails, but about seamlessly integrating advertising messages into extremely personal customer service and support emails.
Email marketers need to think outside the box
The more mass emails people receive, the fewer they read.. The inbox is infinitely patient and indiscriminately processes all incoming information. The recipient is not patient. You’re offering a great new product? Well good for you! You’re offering huge savings? Who cares! No one has the time or the energy to process everything that bypasses the spam filters into the inbox. The solution: burn all the books you have read on how to spice up your marketing messages, forget those worn-out and meaningless phrases. Be sarcastic, be ironic and forget political correctness. You are trying to grab the recipient’s attention and "Check out our new great deal!" and similar off-the-peg messages just won't cut it.
Email marketers can no longer get away with cheating
When email campaigns fail to produce results, there is a tried-and-trusted method of windowdressing – highlight the view rate with a marker pen. Many senior executives are easily impressed by double-digit percentages, failing to see the hard facts behind the pretty figures. In 2011, superficial, unsubstantiated response indicators such as the view rate are going to come under huge pressure – from new metrics that reveal the true impact of an email campaign. And this will brutally reveal one of the key challenges of email marketing: the vast majority of contact addresses are as dead as a doornail in terms of response.
Email marketing is here to stay
When 2011 comes to a close we will draw a simple conclusion which response rates and ROI statistics already suggest today: email marketing reaches 100 to 1000 times the number of contacts that social-media marketing does – and much more frequently and much more reliably. And it is currently 10 to 100 times more cost-effective than social-media marketing. That doesn’t mean that social-media marketing can be or even should be neglected. For online reputation objectives, although difficult to gauge in terms of monetary gain, it is becoming ever-more important. However, in 2011 and well beyond, the real money will be earned via email marketing.