The Tale of E-mail and the Banner Ad  E-MAIL MARKETING By Jeanniey Mullen, ClickZ, Nov 23, 2009 Columns  |  Contact Jeanniey  |  Biography

Last week, I spoke about e-mail marketing, digital publishing, and social media to groups totaling over 1,000 people. It was tons of fun. In each presentation, I shared statistics from recent research about the total disregard we, as consumers, have for banner advertisements. Basically, we ignore them. They don't even seem intrusive anymore. They're just ignored.

Then, I shared the good news: while banners are dead, e-mail is not. In fact, I pointed out that for every $1 spent on e-mail marketing, the average company can expect a $43 ROI (define). Usually, people begin to believe in the power of e-mail much more seriously at this point and start taking notes.

Interestingly, at one of my speaking engagements, a fellow e-mail expert, Dela Quist, CEO of Alchemy Worx, shared a video on the power of subliminal messaging. (You can see it here.) The intended takeaway of the video is that people are influenced by things they see, even if they don't recall seeing them initially. But, it was yet another e-mail expert, Tamara Gielen, who made the revelation that this type of advertising is very similar to the current day role of banners.

This introduced a new appreciation for banners, when they work together with e-mails. Maybe there is hope for the medium after all. I loved this thought and immediately began thinking about the ways we, as e-mail marketers, can test using subliminal branding queues from our partners in other media channels. The top three most effective ways are:

• The retargeted banner infusion, followed by an e-mail driving people down the funnel faster because of the inherent feeling of familiarity with a product.
  
  
• The guilt-trip banner that we "don't see" after we shut down, or delete an e-mail. It's just enough to send us back to the e-mail or site to make a purchase.
  
  
• The "gimmie more" banner that asks you to interact with it, knowing that the first five times you see it, you probably won't. But also knowing that the sixth time you see it, you will spend lots of time with it.

All of the banner and e-mail integration ideas got me thinking about the even larger potential for e-mails. Optimal ROI can occur when e-mail is grounded firmly as a part of multi-channel marketing strategy.

Think about it. What if your e-mails only had to work twice as hard and get four times the results? This can happen if you leverage the other media channels around you to soften and educate the consumer. Pre-exposure through banners, search engine results, and social feeds make the consumer much more comfortable with your brand. By the time they get your e-mail, you're an old friend to them (in their mind). Post e-mail, TV shots, Web videos, mobile ads, etc. add that sense of credibility that seals the deal for purchase intent.

For many of us, e-mail marketing stops when we master the channel. Imagine what we can achieve if we integrate it with other channels and grow the results.

Meet Jeanniey at SES Chicago, December 7-9, 2009 at the Hilton Chicago.

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Biography

Jeanniey Mullen is the chief marketing officer for Zinio and its sister company, the exclusively digital magazine VIVmag. Jeanniey is recognized as a pioneer and visionary in the digital marketing and advertising space, with an expertise in e-mail marketing.

Prior to Zinio, Jeanniey was the senior partner and global executive director of the e-mail marketing and digital dialogue practice at OgilvyOne Worldwide. She worked with such clients as IBM, American Express, and Yahoo. In the mid-2000s, Jeanniey founded the Email Experience Council, the world's largest e-mail marketing trade organization. She currently serves as the executive director of the EEC, which is now owned by the Direct Marketing Association. Before that, Jeanniey ran her own advertising agency. And in the late 1990s, Jeanniey created the global e-mail marketing division inside an advertising agency at Grey Direct.

Jeanniey is a frequent speaker on a variety of topics including e-mail and digital marketing, brand development, and publishing. She is also a published author with two books in her portfolio, including "Email Marketing: An Hour A Day." She sits on the advisory boards of a number of innovative organizations, including the Social Media Advertising Consortium and the Online Marketing Summit.

» Contact Jeanniey Mullen

Article Archives by Jeanniey Mullen:
E-mail Marketing by the Numbers - Nov 9, 2009
The Future of E-Mail - Oct 26, 2009
Relevancy Wins Big in E-mail - Oct 12, 2009
Track E-Mail Campaigns Outside the Inbox - Sep 28, 2009
Slowing Down Those Crafty Con Artists - Sep 14, 2009
Seven Signs You Need to Revive Your Permissions Database - Aug 31, 2009
» More Articles by Jeanniey Mullen

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Planning a Link Bait Strategy by Bryan Eisenberg
The Google Wave (of Ad Releases) by Kevin Lee
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