Monday, September 13, 2010

Email Marketing Trends

The delivery of standalone text, HTML and Rich Media to permission-based email lists has continued to be the most cost-efficient means of customer acquisition and retention that is available. The Return on Investment (ROI) in direct email marketing has been made possible thanks to the availability of more accurate, richer subscriber data and improved subscriber segmentation technologies. In fact, any company that fails to appropriately evolve email as a marketing tool is competitively and strategically disadvantaged. Email marketing solutions appropriately fit into this picture. The continuing exponential growth of SPAM or unsolicited email however seems to place downward pressures on email rates, however ingenious email marketing solutions have been, to a certain extent, able to go round this hurdle.

There is speculation that direct email marketing solutions will not continue to be as worthwhile as they were 4 or 5 years ago. The economics of email marketing for customer retention and acquisition will likely be different in the future. However, one thing will continue to be the de facto standard in email marketing – permission. For positive email campaigns however, more will be required. As one email marketing solutions founder said, “permission has become so mainstream now that while in the past there was a real difference between acquisition email lists harvested from newsgroups and permission-based lists, being permission-based is no longer the differentiator it used to be for either the marketer or the user.”

In the present online marketing field, only permission-based email campaigns that have a high ‘inbox visibility’ degree provide worthwhile and positive Return on Investment to marketers both on the acquisition and the retention fronts. Today’s email marketing solutions are aimed at improving inbox visibility through implementation of practices that are related to crafting email subject lines and strategies of the sort. However to attain sustained inbox visibility, email marketing solutions strategies will need to go deeper. Implementing strategies that insulate one from the shifting market dynamics in email marketing will give any company the real competitive advantage.

What email marketing solutions strategies will prove successful? Directly anticipated email communications. By and large, directly anticipated emails will prove immune to growing inbox invisibility since their arrival is anticipated by the recipients. These campaigns can be run through email newsletter campaigns. Other strategies include gathering emails of individuals interested in particular products and delivering such information immediately to the individuals. It is becoming increasingly difficult to overcome the problem of inbox invisibility but email newsletters seem to have a better chance of overcoming this problem as well as other email marketing solutions that move away from direct email strategies.

Marketing Consultant in Kansas City