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There is no doubt that email is a cost effective marketing tool. Recent research shows that over 90% of internet users cite using email as their most popular online activity, and the proliferation of broadband over recent years means that the number of consumers and businesses going online continues to grow.

However, using email to communicate with your customers, partners and prospects is not as straightforward as it may first appear. As well as meeting marketing objectives and branding guidelines, businesses must ensure that their communications meet stringent legal requirements.

In the first part of this major feature, Sali Earls covers the reasons SMEs should consider using email; the development of a mailing list; spam; and overcoming technical problems.

Why Email?

Email has become a vital business tool, and can save businesses time and money in getting their message in front of relevant audiences. As Darren Fell, founder of independent email and SMS marketing company Pure360.com, told itwales.com, "Email for marketing, email for support information and updates, email to confirm a sale... email is now being used for so many facets of a company's communication with its prospects and customers."

Andy Jones, Consultant at Capita Communications, agrees, and offers words of advice to SMEs, "Compared to direct mail it offers significant cost advantages, and if used well can generate response rates better than mail and internet advertising. You can see a response immediately, and a significant percentage of response will occur in a period of three days - so you need to make sure you can handle that level of response, or divide your mailing list into sections and mail them over a period of time."

Jones continues, "One of the key benefits is that you can personalise your email, and even tailor the offer you make to specific customers or groups of customers. It's most effective when used in conjunction with a website, where you should always offer an opt-in newsletter or an email enquiry form to allow you to build a database of people interested in your business and willing to receive marketing communications from you."

Richard Gibson, Chairman of Direct Marketing Association's Email Marketing Council's - Benchmarking Hub, and Commercial Director of RSA Direct, told itwales.com, "Email is a highly effective channel, if used correctly for customer retention as well as acquisition in both B2B and B2C markets. SMEs are not disadvantaged by their size if they employ email marketing as part of their direct marketing strategy."

Email is low cost, and fast to deploy, but just because you're cutting costs, it doesn't mean you should cut corners where quality is concerned. Like any other business tool, there are right and wrong ways to use it effectively.

Darren Fell of Pure360.com explains why it's now so ubiquitous, "Email is simple and cost-effective and will give companies regular contact with their client bases, without it taking oodles of time to prepare each newsletter or campaign. Templates built into companies' email marketing systems allow them to simply drop in new or updated copy and images. Email is far more efficient than direct mail, as it takes hours to prepare rather than days."

If your email marketing campaign is going to work you need to ensure several things are in place, from the compliance with legal requirements, to a punchy headline and an integrated web and email message. But at the heart of any campaign is your contact list - be they clients, prospects or partners - and it is your task to persuade them to sign up, and then keep them happy.

Building your lists

Email marketing, like any form of direct marketing, is all about permission. As we'll come on to in part 2 of this article, there are several laws and guidelines that companies must adhere to, but a key aspect is that you cannot market to people who have not expressly given permission for this to happen. While this sounds onerous, it can be reasonably straightforward to develop a strategy for gathering, managing and maintaining contact lists.

Ian Creek, Marketing Executive at New Zapp, told itwales.com, "Grow your list using online email signup forms. These can be added to your website with relative ease. You can also offer incentives for signing up. For example a free whitepaper or a money off voucher. These promotions can help increase your database at relatively low cost."

Email marketing software company ION Technologies company, have several customers in Wales, including the Patent Office in Cardiff. Niall McKeown of ION Technologies had some advice for itwales.com readers about building the list, "At every opportunity and point of contact with customers and potential customers, gain their consent to be added to you email marketing list. Build your list with the same vigour that you put into any other part of your marketing and ensure that you have the right tools to do the job."

The Direct Marketing Association's Email Marketing Council has produced best practice guidelines produced to assist companies of all sizes in this area. These include best practice for unsubscription from emails. The guidelines suggest that every email should include

• A URL link to click through to an unsubscribe page
  
• The option of replying to the message with unsubscribe in the subject line
  
• Invoking a new email to send that includes a customer ID
  
• A postal address for unsubscribing

The Institute of Direct Marketing (IDM) also has words of advice for marketers, in the form of its Guide to E-Marketing. The guide reiterates the message that the unsubscribe process is the foundation of responsible marketing, and says, "If you are open and transparent about how you use data and give people reassurance as to how easy it is to unjoin, you will probably end up with a more compliant, equal relationship with your subscribers. Gone are the days when you could make it as hard as possible for people to get off your list. If they want to go, let them go without a struggle."

The IDM guide also explains the importance of performing de-duplication of the mailing list before use, particularly if you are merging data from more than one source. The guide states, "There is nothing worse than mailing people several times with the same message - it's pretty basic data management and will make you look terribly unprofessional."

Mark Brownlow, editor of the blog email-marketing-reports.com, said, "There are no short cuts to building an address list. There are plenty of people out there who will sell you lists of email addresses and will claim they're targeted and everyone on that list has given permission to have their address touted around. The only time it's true is when the seller is a reputable brand and then they'll charge you a price that will probably make your eyes boggle. Anyone else is probably running a scam."

Brownlow continues, "There is no real substitute for building a list by hand, by getting your customers or prospects to actively sign up to your email program. Put a sign-up form on every page of your website. Leave paper forms at the cash desks. Remind sales reps to mention the email program to their customers. It's a slow process, but then you get a quality and legitimate list of people who really do want to get emails from you.

Email marketing does not mean spam

Each day businesses and individuals experience a flood of emails, from standard everyday communications to email newsletters that have been subscribed to. But spam is now cropping up regularly in everyone's mailbox. Whether you're being offered herbal medication to give your sex life a boost, or being notified that you've won the Dutch lottery, unsolicited bulk emails like this seem almost unavoidable.

So if you want to use email to market your products or services, how do you avoid being mistaken for spam?

Andrew Downie from Swansea based anti-spam experts NetBop has advice for email marketers, and told itwales.com, "Send the email address from the typical email address you use, such as a person's name. Then once you send them out always be consistent, don't go chopping and changing the email address for every newsletter."

Downie goes on to say, "Always personalise the email by at the start, perhaps by saying: "Hello Mr Jones,". And if the email is going to more that five people, never CC people in - always use the BCC option. Not only does this help if there is a problem with someone's email box, but also it protects the addresses of everyone the email is sent to."

Mark Brownlow, of email-marketing-reports.com, has more advice to help companies avoid being viewed as spammers. "You of course need to follow the UK anti-spam laws, but that's not the real issue. Just because you are not considered spam by the courts, doesn't mean that readers will think the same way. It's a trap many fall into - "as long as I obey the law, I can send an email to anyone". If you haven't got explicit permission from someone who knowingly requested exactly that kind of email from you, then you run the risk of being considered a spammer."

He continues, "It's a matter of perception, not legislation. Even with that explicit permission, the reader can still think of you as a spammer if you wait several months before sending the first email, if you send too much email or if you send email that is boring or irrelevant."

Overcoming the technical hurdles

You've decided to use email, and you've built your contact list, but before you can send your message, there are a number of technical considerations to take into account.

You need to think about the format of your email; the email package you're using; and the landing pages of your website.

The Institute of Direct Marketing offers food for thought on technical issues in its Guide to E-Marketing. The guide suggests looking at personalisation, investigating whether data fields work to match up the email address with the name of the recipient. It also asks marketers to make sure that unsubscribe links point to the correct landing page of the website, and update the database accordingly.

For HMTL emails the guide has more suggestions including preview messages for PC and Mac users, and for users of AOL email and dial up modems.

Andy Jones of Capita Communications, says, "You can send your email as text or as an HTML page, and it is important to offer both options, HTML should be an option and not a substitute."

Jones continues, "HTML is undoubtedly more visually appealing and will generally deliver a better response rate as it allows links to your website to be better displayed, but it is not viewable in all email programmes and has a longer download time due to it being a larger file - remember that increasingly people are viewing emails on the move using handheld devices."


Published by IT Wales - 22nd November 2006
www.itwales.com