Email Optimization Tips for 2003
Al dusts off the old crystal ball and divines what the coming year has in store for email marketers.
Al dusts off the old crystal ball and divines what the coming year has in store for email marketers.
Santa is loading up the sled, the eggnog will soon be flowing, and the New Year’s resolutions are in first draft. It’s hard to believe 2002 is already coming to a close. Thankfully, what could have been a grim financial year turned out not nearly as badly as initially advertised. Although the post-September 11 economic blues have not entirely dissipated, many more marketers this past year committed themselves to better understanding their customers and planning efforts based on return on investment (ROI) potential as opposed to making scattershot media buys. That commitment has paid off.
As we battle through the all-important holiday shopping season, initial indications are strong and 2002 could end on a high note. According to comScore Networks, consumers spent approximately $2 billion on merchandise and travel online during the week after Thanksgiving — that’s an increase of 34 percent over last year. Not bad. In addition, between November 1 and December 6, consumers pointed and clicked their way to spending $5.6 billion on online retail goods and services, which is up 17 percent from the same period in 2001 — respectable by any measure.
One interesting trend from the comScore data worth specifically noting is jewelry represents one of the fastest-growing online sales categories, whereas, in the past, consumers typically purchased items like jewelry only in stores. This trend proves that as the Internet becomes increasingly popular and consumers grow more experienced buying online, shoppers’ confidence will rise and new opportunities will emerge for marketers in all categories.
These developments, of course, also bode well for the ongoing importance of email in the marketing mix — not just for retailers but for all marketers. As a critical conduit of communication between marketers and their customers, email has the capability to help businesses increase revenues and decrease operational costs exponentially by building tighter and more valuable relationships throughout the customer life cycle. The vital bond between online users and their email represents a profound driver of current and future growth, not only for e-commerce but also for sales and cost savings across all channels.
But like all media, email is not without its own challenges. Marketers are continuously faced with getting the recipient’s attention, and doing so is often a mix of art and science. To continue email’s momentum, smart marketers must take the steps to optimize email communications and their customer relationships, so that each message is valuable, relevant, and ROI focused. This brings me to my email prediction for 2003: Email and customer optimization will propel the continued success of email as a marketing and communications medium.
Here are my lucky seven email and customer optimization strategies and tactics that will play an increasingly important role in the success and evolution of email in 2003:
Emerging data tools can automatically validate list data by verifying the domain of an email address, the existence of an actual user at that domain, and the ability of the address to receive messages — all prior to mailing. Several email providers offer this technology as a product that can be integrated into your list management process or as an outsourced service. The benefits of address validation are improved delivery rates, cleaner lists, increased email operational efficiency, and reduced overall delivery costs. In addition, multiple delivery attempts to an invalid email address can create unwanted attention from major ISPs or Web-based email service providers. Hygiene on both the front and back ends will be critical!
New technologies and services are now available to legitimate marketers from permission-based email providers to help them scan and analyze their messaging for “spam traits” and trigger keywords that could set off the antispam alarms. These scans can even score a message to weigh the likelihood of it being mistaken for spam and offer ways to lower the score.
Email optimization should be a major factor in helping marketers improve their bottom lines in 2003 and beyond, and it will be very exciting to see how the year will unfold. Now it’s time to put the crystal ball away and get back to work. Happy holidays and have a great new year!
Until next time,
Al D.