Effective eMail Marketing & The Dusty Shoebox Phenomena

Everywhere I go marketers are all atwitter about Social Media. Yet, as often as I’m asked by businesses about how to build a following on social, just as often I discover that their business is yet another victim of The Dusty Shoebox Phenomena!

Here’s why email is often overlooked in the marketing mix and 6 steps to doing something about it.

It goes something like this:

“We’ve got this great car-giveaway contest and we’ll collect emails as part of it and we can email them after!” or…
“As part of the research we’ll collect emails so we can keep in touch with them after!” or…
“Now every time someone checks-in we’ll collect their emails so we can market to them forever!”

And then…

(cricket, cricket)

Nothing.

The list of names gets shoved into a virtual shoebox that grows dustier everyday. Ponder that while membership in loyalty programs increased 25% between 2006 and 2008, fewer than 44% of loyalty program memberships showed any activity last year. As the Colloquy report said, most loyalty programs are little more than names in a database.

Sometimes technology is to blame (“I’m just waiting till we get that new, fancy CRM system installed”), sometimes it’s just lack of time and sometimes it’s because something bright and shiny came walking along.

So What’s More Effective?

Should you concentrate on building a following on the top Social Media sites or should you dust off your email marketing plans? While it’s a mistake these days not to have a social profile and be actively testing this new medium, consider this when it comes to focusing your efforts:

• When asked where they plan on increasing their spending in 2011 65% said eMail marketing according to a recent study profiled on eMarketer; ahead of social media, search and all other media choices. What do they know that you don’t?
• A comscore study found that email had an average 4.4% conversion rate in the U.S. and according to MarketingSherpa and AdTech 44% of marketers said house list had “a great ROI”.
• Results of a survey last month of holiday shoppers found that 19% of all shoppers came to retailer’s sites via promotional emails significantly more than from web searches (8%) or social media (5%).
• It costs 5 – 10 X more to get a sale from a new customer than from an existing one.

6 Steps To Dusting Off Your eMail List

So how do you go about turning that old list into an effective email marketing program?

1. To begin, don’t think about it as a new project.

In today’s fragmented media environment, we all have different ways we want to receive information. Dave might prefer a Twitter stream. Ashley likes blog feeds. And Adam likes email. So, unless you’re into wasting time and duplicating effort, don’t silo your email marketing programs. Instead, just consider them another channel of communication.

2. Figure out what to send.

It’ll be easier if you focus on what content you already have existing. It might be trapped in one silo and could be used as helpful, educational content in an email next to a promotional offer:

• Best Blog posts of the past month
• Interesting industry articles
• White Papers
• Highlights of recent speeches
• Recent reviews
• Press you’ve received
• Surveys (Got a burning question? Involve your customers.)
• Facebook posts
• Videos
• Answers to FAQs

3. Use an eMail Service Provider.

It makes sense to use an email service provider like MailChimp or ConstantContact because they’re an easy, cheap way to get started and, given that your list is a little dusty, you can take advantage of their reputation as spam-free senders.

4. Adopt eMail Marketing best practices.

Reminding them upfront as to why they’re receiving this will help prevent you from being dumped into the spam bucket. For more tips try this handy 12 Point Check List for Effective eMail Marketing.

5. Delegate.

One of my all-time favourite clients used to say ‘let the dog do the barking’ so consider outsourcing all this to an email marketing professional so they can make you money and you can do what only you can do.

6. Incorporate eMail Marketing into your Marketing Calendar.

Add eMail to the list of other ways you get your monthly marketing message out and commit to a regular schedule.

Remember marketing is supposed to be a verb not a noun so blow the dust off those names, get one of online’s most effective marketing tools working for you and start using that shoebox for something else.

Hope this helps.