Long Live E-Mail Marketing

While some experts have predicted the death of e-mail due to the popularity of social media, e-mail isn't going away any time soon. Social media may provide new and faster ways of communicating, but e-mail provides a pace and style that is more intimate and thoughtful, giving it an importance that other media may not have. "And all social media updates are delivered by e-mail," says Heather Vessey, e-mail marketing senior manager at Bonnier Corporation.

When it comes to e-mail marketing, we've come a long way from the one-way communication stream that marked early efforts. Today's e-mail marketing is a two-way conversation between the brand and the consumer, says Vessey. It both builds up the brand and adds subscribers. "E-mail marketing should give valuable tips and insights from experts on specific subjects, provide value through special offers from partners and help drive audience engagement. We also use e-mail marketing to generate subscriptions through renewals and gifts."

Along with generating subscriptions, e-mail marketing is key to increasing online traffic. "Around 40-50 percent of our website page views are generated from our own e-mail newsletters," says Steffen Trannerup, commercial development specialist at Bonnier Publications, which publishes magazines in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, among other countries. E-mail marketing gives a tremendous amount of control in making sure there are a certain amount of page views at a website.

But in order to be successful, good e-mail marketing requires a combination of components, says Vessey. "Key elements include testing, list growth, improving performance such as click-through rates and creating content that audiences want," she says.

It all really comes down to one thing: the subscriber. "Relevancy and involvement are the keys to good e-mail marketing," says Trannerup. "Don't make promises you can't keep. Don't lure anyone into clicking but be open about what to expect. Unlike 20 year ago, the response is immediate so make one wrong move and you'll be punished instantly. Ask yourself, would I want to open and read this e-mail? If not, chances are that nobody else would either!"

All e-mail marketing is not the same either. Different cultures require different approaches, and there are technical differences as well among different Internet Service Providers nationally. "The evolution of marketing itself in both the U.S. and Europe have been isolated from one another so almost everything is based on a different mindset," Trannerup says.  "So the starting points of developing e-mail marketing really were different. Now it seems like we're looking to each other more and more, but in the end it's always the subscribers and their preferences that define the end result."

As for the latest trends in e-mail marketing, social media is having a big effect on the industry - and providing new opportunities. Instead of driving traffic to brand websites, e-mails drive traffic to social media sites to develop larger audiences and engage brand ambassadors to influence others in their social circle. "It's all about generating more leads, higher page views and advertising dollars," says Vessey.

But it means letting go of control and trusting that an indirect approach will help you improve your brand perception and ultimately the number of subscribers, viewers and advertisements you can generate.

"If you tend to push, not letting the visitor or e-mail subscriber take control, you will never be successful with social media," says Trannerup. "Social media is based on the media handing over the control to the users, and once that happens there is no limit to how powerful the e-mail marketing channel could become."

And watch out for HTML5 - the next version of HTML will allow for video, which should mean some new opportunities for e-mail marketing, although Internet Service Providers will need to be more standardized. "We need coding standards in place in order to enable greater functionality and more dynamic e-mails," says Vessey.

Trannerup also says that the personalization of e-mails has not yet reached its peak. "I think in the near future we will see e-news and even sponsored e-mails from established media being edited by the user," he says. "Within the limits of the established media there will be tools for the visitors and users to edit and broadcast newsletters, and we will see more trusted super users being given more and more control."

Trigger-based communication system will be key, with personalized e-mails, texting and MMS, for example. "Each mail will consist of content elements corresponding with the recipient's prior behavior in all the other media," says Trannerup. "These systems will be able to create incredible amounts of variation to ensure maximum relevancy for the recipient."