CRM - January 2009 - (Page 34)

EMAIL MARKETING That impact may be on the wane. According to the Direct Marketing Association, email returned $45.06 for every dollar spent on it in 2008, down from $48.34 in 2007. That’s projected to sink to $43.52 in 2009. In its Power of Direct Marketing Report 2008–2009, the DMA attributes this decline to a gradual shift “toward the direct marketing norm.” Still, email remains the highest-earning channel, with Internet marketing coming in second at $19.94, down from $20.60 in 2007, despite being the least expensive medium—$0.6 billion was spent on commercial email in 2008, compared to $24.1 billion in non-email Internet marketing. (Telephone marketing, at $42.5 billion, was the priciest.) Email deliverability solutions provider Habeas (acquired in August 2008 by its former competitor Return Path) found that 67 percent of consumers prefer to use email to communicate with businesses (postal mail came in a distant second at 35 percent). Habeas’s Email Survey 2008 further underscored the popularity of the medium, indicating that 73 percent of Internet users check their email on a daily basis. Further, 63 percent say they’re unwilling to relinquish this communication channel, up from 61 percent in 2007. Only 3 percent of respondents said they could give up email completely. Email certainly did have its share of bumps before reaching the top. Bob Myhal, president of health and fitness e-commerce site Musclemaster.com, remembers when the company first introduced its email list in 1999, consumers couldn’t get enough. “We had 17,000 subscribers in the first two months,” Myhal recalls.“Email marketing was easy [then]. Everybody wanted to get email.” Musclemaster started with its “fitness tip of the week” and gradually began to embed marketing messages that encouraged consumers to make purchases and share their personal preferences.“We really built our business through that,” he says. “Email marketing [used to be] easy. Everybody wanted to get email.” Then came 2003. Concern about spam was high and email fatigue was palpable. An added layer of protection came with that year’s CAN-SPAM Act. Having previously seen open rates of 40 percent to 50 percent, Myhal recalls open rates dropping dramatically—down to 10 percent, with many subscribers opting out entirely. As email technology got more sophisticated, users also got smarter about protecting their systems and personal information. Even so, Charles Stiles, co-vice chair of the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG), says that simply educating users isn’t enough to ensure they can recognize spam, especially when, as he says, “there are plenty of industry experts that can’t.” Nevertheless, fears about email have subsided to a large extent, allowing email marketing to flourish again. What started as a novelty for early adopters and the technologically advanced is now a core part of managing everyday life. Improved broadband connections and the popularity of laptops and smartphones have vastly contributed to the reliance on email. “It’s become so powerful mainly because consumers have become very digital and very mobile,” Mullen says. Email Associations or Services with Sender Initiatives Anti Phishing Working Group (APWG) Authentication and Online Trust Alliance (AOTA) Direct Marketing Association (DMA) Email Experience Council (EEC), part of the DMA Email Sender & Provider Coalition (ESPC) Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) Network Abuse Clearinghouse TRUSTe SOURCE: MAAWG SENDER BEST COMMUNICATIONS PRACTICE, VERSION 2.0 SPECIAL DELIVERY In May 2008, the cost of a stamp from the United States Postal Service rose to 42 cents. An email, however, is essentially free. The caveat, of course, is that actually getting it delivered—not to mention the cost of developing the creative material—carries a price tag that marketers cannot afford to squander. “A very small percentage of emails the ISPs [Internet service providers] handle is legitimate—90 percent of it is spam,” says David Atlas, senior vice president of worldwide marketing and sales for certified email provider Goodmail. Of the ones that are legitimate, email deliverability vender Pivotal Veracity reports that roughly 20 percent don’t even get delivered. According to an October 2008 report by JupiterResearch, now part of Forrester Research, the U.S. email market will have wasted $134 million on paid-but-undelivered email. “[It’s] only a $1 billion industry,” says David Daniels, a Forrester vice president and principal analyst. “That’s 10 percent of our industry we just set on fire every day.” “Consumers today see less spam than they’ve seen in the past,” MAAWG’s Stiles says, “[but] there’s actually more spam than there’s ever been.” But even if you’re not selling Viagra, spam is in the eye of the beholder. Some experts define it as anything a recipient doesn’t want; if the request was for emails to be sent monthly and you send them daily—you’re spam.“Companies will say, ‘But I’m CAN-SPAM compliant,’” Stiles notes. “[That] means you won’t wear an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs. It doesn’t mean you have the right to send email.” Most ISPs provide email recipients with a “Report Spam” www.destinationCRM.com 34 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | JANUARY 2009 http://www.Musclemaster.com http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - January 2009

CRM - January 2009 Contents Front Office Feedback Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point The Shots Heard ’Round the World 30,000-Foot Views Of the Cloud Stuffing the Ballot Box— With Complaints The Marketing Line for ’09 CRM on Twitter Technology Helps Insurance Weather the Storm Required Reading The Google-ization of CRM The Feedback Funnel Email: What’s Inside? Shake Your Moneymakers Lead Sweet Lead Incentives at the Speed of Lightpath Sales Contentment for Content Management A Worthwhile Excursion Into Call Recording Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Connect Pint of View

CRM - January 2009

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