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How to Make Email Marketing Suck LessPart Three

We live in a world where people are interacting with email more than ever, where an email address is often the anchor of our customers’ digital identity, when marketers report that email is still one of the most valuable channels, and yet brands continue to destroy the channel campaign after campaign.
It’s time to stop that trend.

Over the last year, I was fortunate to spend time on the road talking with marketers about why email marketing sucks and how we can make it better. 30,000+ views later, and it’s time to put this baby on the shelf. Rather than let it collect dust, see below.

You’ll find the slides, along with how I presented them pretty much verbatim. And, don’t worry, I saved you from the introductory slides because we all know how painful those can be.

In part three of six, we look at why even when all the news about email is doom and gloom, it just keeps performing well for brands.

Part Three: But, Email Marketing Isn’t Going Away

Slide 22

But, enough with the doom and gloom, email marketing still works super well.

Why?

Slide 23

Four reasons:

1. When we look at the industry as a whole, email interactions are up, largely driven by mobile.
2. ROI is still solid, regardless of what research you look at.
3. Digital identity and email go hand-in-hand. Please tell me what you can signup for or purchase something online without an email address. Yes, there are few outliers, but for the most part you need an email address to do transact online.

1. Email data compliments all the other channels we play in. Think custom audiences on Facebook or ad targeting via our CRMs.

Slide 24

When ExactTarget asked businesses how critical email was for their business, the majority of respondents said the channel is a critical enabler for their products and services.

Slide 25

It also assists purchases.

Email continues to play a critical middle man role between initial awareness and decision-making in almost every consumers path to purchase.

Slide 26

Email also provides halo effects on purchases. What do we mean by halo effects? We are referring to the effects that email has even when it isn’t engaged with via an open or click.

Take for example this data from Fourth Source in the UK. The diagram is taken from their own client data and shows two things:

1. In orange, the average daily revenue in the month on days in which email was sent
2. And in blue, the average daily revenue for days which no email was sent.

None of the these bars include revenue attributed to email, but on days when email is sent higher revenue is driven through non-email channels.

That is a clear halo effect.

Slide 27

Email is also a key contributor of revenue over a customer’s lifetime.

Data from Salesforce’s Predictive Intelligence Benchmark Report suggests that the longer relationship a subscriber has with your organization the more it influences how much that subscriber spends with you.

Slide 28

And, the channel has finally reached what Gartner’s Digital Marketing Hype Cycle calls the Plateau of Productivity.

The channels noted within the plateau of productivity phase are widely demonstrated and accepted, meaning email marketers have great platforms, tools, and applications available to engage and target subscribers.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to check out all six parts of the series.

Part One: Why Does Email Suck?

Part Two: While We Were Sleeping On Facebook and Twitter, A Lot Changed

Part Three: But, Email Marketing Isn’t Going Away

Part Four: Sales and Marketing Continue to Stumble

Part Five: The Good Stuff — How to Make Email Suck Less

Part Six: Let’s Wrap It Up