Johannesburg, 26 Apr 2006
E-mail marketing is becoming an ever more important customer communication tool, but without careful management, it can alienate, not encourage, customers.
In a recent report by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) it says that e-mail marketing will continue to grow as more companies realise the cost-effectiveness and impact provided by e-mail marketing campaigns. The report states that 78% of respondents project a continued increase in e-mail quantities.
This follows an upward trend from 2002, where e-mail first started taking ground as a viable marketing tool. Having become accustomed to this new form of marketing, the DMA reports that e-mailers have adopted different list techniques to improve front-end response, such as subject line testing (41%), personalisation (40%), and prior mail history analysis (34%).
Recognising the importance of e-mail campaigns and these advanced techniques, Softline Enterprise launched the E-marketing Communicator, an e-mail marketing solution designed to make it easier for companies to send the right information to the right customers, at the right time. Used in conjunction with its award-winning CRM solution, SalesLogix, it measures overall campaign effectiveness to help build an ever stronger profile of the customer and more successful e-mail campaigns in the future.
"An example," says Ashley Ellington, divisional director, Softline Enterprise, "is the fact that the actions of the recipients are directly written back to the contact records, ensuring the customer`s requests are captured in real-time. This is powerful and will lead to better customer communication in the long run."
Ellington says E-marketing Communicator creates HTML and text format e-mails that can be targeted against all manner of criteria: "They can be personalised not only by name, but also by context, and the system provides previously unheard of levels of feedback."
With people being bombarded by ever growing levels of e-mail, it is becoming increasingly important to target messages to the specific interests of individual customers. "This level of targeting is possible because the E-marketing Communicator operates from within SalesLogix," says Ellington. "As such, it can use information about a particular customer that is already held on the system to build a message they are likely to respond to. Also, because messages are sent as both HTML and text versions, they have a far better response rate against filters that are often designed to exclude the former."
"In-depth feedback is key," says Ellington. The E-marketing Communicator`s strength also lies in the information it supplies about the results of each mailing. Users receive collated information concerning exactly who reads a mailing and what they were interested in. This means it is possible to tailor all subsequent communications still further.
"It will also capture `bounce backs` such as undeliverable mail or out-of-office replies and then place them in a separate area of the system," says Ellington. "It then sifts through each return and automatically updates the system, flagging that addresses should be updated or mailed again on another date."
Upon completion of a transaction between company and customer, E-marketing Communicator has the ability to send out a short questionnaire that, for example, can be used to measure and update SalesLogix about a specific individual`s experience of a service or product.
Supporting Ellington`s views is EmailLabs, which recently published its top 10 e-mail trends for 2006. Top of its `10 must do`s` list is increasing the relevance of their messages, primarily through greater and smarter use of personalisation and segmentation techniques. According to EmailLabs, in 2006, those that don`t align the right resources and technology to take their programmes to the next level will find their competitors leaving them behind in the inbox of their customers and subscribers.
"The greatest capability of e-mail marketing technology is segmentation and personalisation, which is ironically the mostly under-utilised tool. It is vital to be aware of the technology available, which will make a difference between a successful e-mail campaign and getting left behind in the inbox," concludes Ellington.
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