Contact
Dear
Friend:
I go to a lot of seminars, meetings, conferences, and networking events, and I am frequently asked about the value of email marketing. Many people ask how I help others justify the expense to their bosses and colleagues. Of course, I love this question! Understanding how email marketing can generate a return for you is, actually, where the strategy begins.
To help you with this important first step, I'm focusing on this one issue in this month's newsletter. Read on, and you'll learn how others before you have generated incredible returns on their email marketing programs. Companies have used it to build important relationships that deliver results, enhance customer service, improve investor relations, warm sales leads, and, of course, generate significant revenue—all with a powerful, high quality email list. That goes for publishers, pharmaceutical firms, software firms, associations, and virtually any other type of organization.
As always, if you have any questions or would like to learn more, please don't hesitate to give us a call. We're passionate about what we do and the results email marketing can generate for you.
Mitch Lapides
President
FulcrumTech, LLC.
P.S. Not yet a subscriber to this newsletter? Click here, and don't miss out on the next issue. Also, please add newsletter@fulcrumtech.net to your email white list so the newsletters don't end up in your junk mail.
|
Feature Article: Justifying email marketing
|
Many people ask me about the value of email marketing, or, better termed "permission marketing." Well, this is certainly a topic we at FulcrumTech love to discuss.
In this issue, we've compiled some impressive statistics from industry success stories, and there are thousands more out there. Feel free to share these stats with your colleagues—they are really impressive! How you may use email and what objectives you can achieve with it are limited only by your imagination and insight.
Every successful program, however, is successful because of how it was planned, written, designed, and managed from step one. To get you started, I've also provided some ways to get you thinking and planning about how email can help you blow away your next targets.
Impressive stats speak to the power of email marketing.
|
As evidenced by the following research findings, regardless of industry, email marketing is making an impressive impact on how we conduct business:
- Forrester Research concludes that people who buy products advertised in emails spend 138% more than people who don't buy through email.
- Email is among the top 5 influencers in business technology decisions (MarketingSherpa and CNET, Business Technology Buyer's survey, May 2006).
- Email marketing had an ROI of $57.25 for every dollar spent, compared to $7.07 for print catalogs, and $22.52 for non-email internet marketing (Direct Mail Association, 2005).
- In May, 2007, Internet Retailer found that 64.7% of retailers surveyed are conducting more email campaigns than a year ago, while over 94% are building bigger opt-in lists. (They're doing this because it must be working!)
And, at FulcrumTech, we're doing our part. Here are a couple of highlights from some of our recent projects:
- Depending upon how well you segment your list, email open rates can reach well over 70%, and we've commonly accomplished between 40% and 50% consistently when lists are segmented well.
- Once a quality email list has been developed, promotions to that list can achieve positive ROI within hours or days.
3 Powerful email ideas for you.
|
There are numerous business building situations where email marketing can be applied. A few samples of how email marketing can be used for your business are as follows:
Relationship marketing
People are more likely to conduct business with you if they trust you. Since we can be inundated with "interactions"—visits to web sites, phone calls, trade show floor introductions—we have a whole lot of interactions, but not necessarily a whole lot of trust. With a carefully planned and executed email campaign, email marketing can be used to provide relevant information, consistently over time to help build trust and nurture relationships.
- For a pharmaceutical client, clinical trial enrollment increased 23% since we implemented an email relationship building campaign. Time is money for pharma, so this is a big deal.
Transactional marketing
Once a prospect has expressed interest, use email to emphasize and support the positive engagement. WebTrends reports that 95% of Web site visitors do not convert in any way after visiting a site (2006). How can you beat this statistic? Email marketing can be used to keep a prospect interested and help move them down the sales funnel. Email marketing can remind prospects to try a product, send you their feedback, and, ultimately, allow you to ask for the sale. The results of which can be profound.
- We have used transactional email very successfully to increase the conversion rate of an online software solution following a 30-day trial period.
Promotional marketing
Email is a very powerful, cost effective tool for communicating offers. Getting the word out on a special offer that your company is promoting can, sometimes, be challenging. With a well designed and executed email campaign, you can send very targeted, personalized and relevant promotions to any segment of your email list. Customers and prospects can receive different messages that speak specifically to their needs. By segmenting lists and communicating specific offers, you can increase the overall success rates.
Making it happen for you.
|
While there are many great success stories and applications with email marketing, it's important to remember that email marketing needs to be planned and implemented correctly to deliver the desired results. Successful strategy development and implementation start with understanding your objective and then carefully planning around that. We've developed a number of great methodologies for doing just this. Learn more in future NewsLevers, or visit our Web site at FulcrumTech.net.
EmailStatCenter.com—a great compilation of email statistics to guide you in just about every area of email.
As always, if you have any questions or would like us to help you craft or implement an email strategy to drive results, please call (215-489-9336) or write us today.
| |
|
