Middle School Marketing Recap: The State of Email Marketing
Is email the “digital glue” that holds our online lives together? Will email remain the dominant form of communication, or will it be replaced by new means of online communication such as Facebook, Twitter, Wikis, etc.? How do so-called “Millennials” view email?
These were just some of the questions that were batted around during the May edition of the Middle School Marketing (MSM) meeting here at Viget Labs. Nikki Schiavone and Amy Garland of Blue Sky Factory kicked off our time together by soliciting the group’s thoughts on the state and future of email marketing and by asking the overarching question “is email dying?” While the consensus was a resounding “no”, the discussion moved into an examination of how Millennials use and view email. While both reports and experience show a decline in the use of email by Millennials, email continues to be the web’s killer app and primary source of identity with almost every social service (requiring an email address at sign-up). Furthermore, businesses will continue to rely heavily on email, resulting in increased adoption by Millennials upon entering the workforce.
Another reason email marketing is alive and well is its maturity. Many email service providers (ESPs) utilize data rich targeting and reporting tools that enable email to be one of the most measurable and efficient means of marketing on the web. Email continues to have a sizable advantage over social media marketing due to marketers’ ability to effectively measure results. Similarly, ESPs are experimenting with allowing subscribers to share email content with various social networks. When given permission to do so, organizations may soon be able to build and sustain relationships by providing messages in the places (inbox, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) subscribers most like to receive them. As the methods for delivering a message online expand it’s important to remember that email remains a valuable and measurable tool in the marketer’s shed for the foreseeable future.
Thanks to everyone who came out. We’re looking forward to next month’s MSM!
Doug: Great summary! Definitely an article we’ll plan on sharing with our own audience. As always, thanks for having us at Viget, and congrats on the new position! Maybe next month we’ll stay for a mini old school Nintendo tournament.
Amy G
Totally agree. E-mails is HUGE. At Clearspring, we make products that help people share stuff. All our reports say that people love to share stuff via e-mail.
In terms of e-mail marketing, I work at a small startup. We have an e-mail newsletter for each of our products. But what else…
I’m not Apple. We don’t have super rich data sets about our customers so that we can hyper target rich messaging to them via e-mail. I know that user A uses product X and user B uses product Y. Even if we did have the data, I don’t have the time or the man power. What can I do?
On a very basic level, I wonder what data should be collected that would improve our e-mail marketing enough that it would move the needle.
@Amy - Thanks! Remind me to bring in my old school Nintendo (NES) before the next MSM and you’re on!
@Justin - All good questions. From my perspective, it’s all about providing the most relevant content to your subscriber base. The “trick” is figuring out what’s relevant to each subscriber (or segment of subscribers). Depending on the size of an organization and the abilities of their ESP there are various ways to try and determine relevant content. Here are a couple of ideas for smaller organizations:
* Segment by purchase history: Provide content (new features, examples of implementations, case studies, etc.) directly related to the product(s) purchased or service(s) being used. It sounds like you are already doing this at Clearspring. I would also consider giving a nod to other products or services you offer that might interest them (as a secondary message).
* Ask: It may be as simple offering a few types of email communication (newsletters, special offer, feature updates, tip of the week, etc) that they can choose from when submitting their email address.
* Data mine (& adjust): This is can range from simple to complex. For smaller organizations it may involve looking at some interesting user trends and brainstorming possible ways to continue the positive ones and curb the negative ones.
The great news for Clearspring is that you are actively helping achieve the end goal of getting relevant content to consumers when and how they want it.
Amy Garland is keeping the conversation going with her post on the Blue Sky Factory Blog. Be sure to check it out!
All very good points. I am sharing this article and comments with our marketing team and CEO. Email gets a bad wrap at our company (mainly because it is not used well and also because it isn’t supported with other efforts).
I am working on fine tuning our email marketing strategy and adjusting some expectations.
Thanks for the info and encouragement on email marketing!
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