In this age of realtime advertising – such as the cookie brand Oreo’s now legendary live tweet during the broadcast of the American SuperBowl earlier this year – as well as interactive, online video ads, a far more humble medium continues to remain popular as a marketing and lead generation tool: e-mail.
“Despite all these new methods of online advertising that are clamouring for attention nowadays, e-mail is still the go-to lead generation and marketing means for many companies, because it is an inexpensive, easy-to-set-up-and-use way to get their message across and to directly target their potential and current clients,” says Louise Robinson, MD of CG Consulting, a Cape Town-based strategic marketing consultancy specialising in lead generation and database creation.
“Even for those small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) with much smaller marketing budgets at their disposal, it is still one of the most affordable options they have to promote their products and services to as many prospects as they wish.”
But even larger corporations with decidedly bigger budgets have not eschewed e-mail marketing. In early August, the mighty Apple launched an e-mail campaign in which they boosted their iPad tablet’s capabilities as a workhorse, using the e-mail to explain how customers can use different productivity applications to accomplish various business-related tasks such as creating documents, spreadsheets and even putting together presentations.
What makes e-mail campaigns so compelling that even corporations resort to it? “Success,” Robinson says. “According to survey results that were recently released by GigaOM, a company which provides in-depth analysis on the business of technology, 56% of respondents say that e-mail marketing was the most effective when it comes to retaining customers, 37% said it was tops for acquiring customers and 41% said it was great for creating awareness about their products or services. And in case you are wondering whether most clients won’t be annoyed and put off by receiving e-mails from you, possibly classifying it as spam, CRM agency the Merkle Group, reports that 74% of consumers actually prefer to receive commercial communications via e-mail.”
According to the Direct Marketing Association, e-mail campaigns boast a reported return on investment (ROI) of up to 4300%. With such a potentially large pay off, it is worth doing it right, Robinson advises.
She says the success of an e-mail campaign lies in how the data is used, rather than only buying a database and hoping for the best. “It’s actually all about the data and using different data. It’s about making sure the message is tailored according to whom you are talking to. In order to entice people to read your carefully crafted message, you need to make it worth their while. Don’t just use it as a platform to flaunt your own product or services – they will soon stop reading it, or even worse, unsubscribe. Instead, make it interesting by telling some relevant anecdotes about your business, or offer your readers something in return. This need not necessarily be a freebie or giveaway, but something such as advice on how they could achieve their own dreams.”
Robinson says that e-mail campaigns fulfilling those requirements take time to create. “It could be time that you and your employees could utilise better on other tasks, such as chasing up new leads.”
Her final advice then is to consider outsourcing your e-mail marketing to experts. “There are several consultancies that offer e-mail campaigns and blasts as part of their lead generation services. And as the statistics I have previously mentioned demonstrate, hiring a specialist for your e-mail campaign could be a worthwhile investment,” she concludes.
