10 Trends That Will Make or Break Your Email ROI in
2010: Part 2
Takeaway notes from an AMA webinar. By Aliza Bornstein, copywriter, Melissa Data

Here are the last five trends in this AMA sponsored Webcast presented by J.D. Peterson of Lyris Inc.

Trend #6: SEM extends marketing intelligence
Search engine marketing (also known as SEM or PPC) can be a natural or paid search, and they’re both going to continue to grow in terms of marketing spent, because it’s the ultimate indicator of prospect interest in a certain topic.

According to Forrester, paid listings themselves are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 15 percent to 32 billion dollars by 2014. One reason is because search provides a plethora of data which makes it one of the most accountable forms of media in the marketer’s toolbox. Data provided by search shows ROI, and it really helps marketers justify budget spending.

As stated by a recent report from eMarketer, as the economy continues to struggle, cost consciousness will remain high. Customers will continue to be driven to find the best deal on whatever purchases they must make. Purchase decisions will often start with search. With this in mind, marketers must put themselves in the best possible position.

Email marketers can leverage and capitalize on the growth, innovation, and maceration of SEM. So through SEM, marketers can capture prospect’s interest at a time when they’re most inclined to respond to your message. This is when they’re proactively researching it and searching for a solution. You can then drive traffic to landing pages to make your sales pitch and to build an email opt-in list.

SEM can also help email marketers by providing metrics such as clicks and conversion rates by campaign or ad group. This tells email marketers which campaigns, key phrases, and offers are most likely to resonate with specific segments. And, that ultimately litigates the risk of sending the wrong email to the wrong audience.

Now that you know the trends in SEM, how can you make them work for your email campaigns in 2010? If you do nothing else, be sure to use SEM as a way to grow your email subscriber list. You could do this with a simple opt-in box on all landing pages or forms associated with PPC campaigns.

The next thing should be to use data from SEM to create more targeted and relevant email messages and offers. Test, so you can identify the kinds of messages and offers that convert best when prospects are at that critical point of aperture, which actually led them to initiate a search.

Finally, if you can do one last thing, leverage the learning from paid search into organic search. This is another great way to improve the ROI of all your search efforts. For instance, optimizing your Web site using the kinds of keywords that have performed well in PPC campaigns or even email. Take the things that work and then apply them to your Web site. This will boost your organic search as well.

Trend #7 Global reach opportunity
The US dollar has fallen in value, but there’s a silver lining in that for US based companies: because of the favorable exchange rate, US made products have gained in popularity. For marketers with an online presence, this leads directly to opportunity.

According to Marketing Sherpa, 1 in 5 marketers in small organizations already send more than 10 percent of their email across national borders, yet more than 3 in 10 consider transnational email an important priority. Transnational email is an important priority for more than half of all large organizations. Global reach is gaining top-of-mind attention for marketers, especially going into 2010.

So, where is the opportunity, you ask? A survey from Anderson Analytics ranks China as the number one greatest area of opportunity at 53 percent. For marketers with an international responsibility, India is second (but somewhat distantly, at 17 percent). Marketers should and need to act quickly so they don’t miss out on the opportunity to expand their global efforts.

To get a jump on this trend and stay ahead of the competition, follow the basic marketing rule of talking in the voice of your audience; both from a cultural, as well as a localization standpoint. (For email marketing that holds true as well). It’s also vital that marketers dig deeply into the spam and privacy laws within each country where they plan to send commercial email, as the laws can differ quite substantially. This may be one of the most important times to consult with a knowledgeable and qualified expert who can help you navigate this terrain. Utilizing and not utilizing a deliverability expert could mean the difference between success and a possible lawsuit.

Armed with all this knowledge, email marketers can use the flexibility, power, efficiency, and accountability of online marketing to support their global initiatives. The singular opportunity for email marketers here is that many major markets (like China and India) are not at the email saturation level that the US has experienced over the last several years. Email marketers have less clutter to cut through to get their offers and messages heard by considerable numbers of global prospects.

Trend #8 Relevance builds engagement
The more engaged your prospects and customers are, the deeper relationship you have with them, and the more revenue opportunity that exists. According to iMedia, interruptive marketing will no longer enjoy its privileged position as the primary influencer of consumer and business preferences and buying decisions.

Engagement marketing is the new age of marketing that respects the power of the informed customer, and catapults marketing into a new level of effectiveness and influence.

Relevance and relationships have always been part of the email marketer’s credo, but now, engagement marketing takes this one giant step further into a world where customers assert more of the control and fully expect companies to participate in two-way dialogs with them.

So, how does one build this engagement? It’s clear that marketers consider content relevancy to be a top element in terms of effectiveness and importance. This means messaging and offers relevant to the recipient’s preferences and needs; relevance between the offer and landing page; and relevance between the landing page and the rest of your online presence; etc.

How specifically do relevance and engagement assist your email marketing efforts and become a part of it? Consumers no longer respond as well to over-marketing and sales copy, as they do to information that actually engages them. Information that is relevant and has value helps them make informed purchasing decisions. They become smarter about their job and things that they need to do.

Relevance boosts deliverability and has a significant effect on email deliverability. Without relevance, prospects toss emails into the spam folder, block future emails, and those efforts you’re putting forth could end up being wasted. Initiating a two-way dialog with customers means communicating with them through every channel and touch point that exists—obviously including email.

Marketing databases used for email can also be used to personalize messages through a variety of channels to customers and prospects. Additionally, information can flow into these databases from other applications yielding truly engaging messages that drive brand influence and revenue in new and powerful ways. The possibilities are endless.

Incorporating this trend into your marketing mix takes time and resources to successfully execute. The first way email marketers can apply this trend to their mix is by developing their own specific rules of engagement. You can match the right messages; offers; products; and services to each prospect.

First, set up a method for segmenting customers: by brand; products purchased; product affinity; etc. Then, you can set criteria for classifying customers: their latest product purchased and average order value. Select the appropriate products/order/messages to correspond with the segmentation of your choosing.

Next, empower your customers and prospects by developing an email preference center. An email preference center is designed to give subscribers the ability to opt-in and out of very specific email vehicles, such as newsletters, product information and sale alerts, as well as to collect specific information about the recipient’s preferences. This can be how they want to receive their email and what kind of frequency they’re open to. This type of information clearly enables email marketers to identify prospects on a very granular level, which ultimately allows for better segmenting, targeting, and relevance.

Lastly, there are additional ways to develop and execute customized trigger and drip email campaigns. These campaigns deliver highly relevant content and offers to the people who want them, and deliver them in an efficient and cost effective way.

Trend #9: Integrated Messaging and Campaigns
Multiple touch points across multiple mediums are now a minimum requirement. The economic challenges of the past year have further heightened the need to integrate, and thus accelerate adoption. So, during this time when marketers need it most, there’s an even greater appreciation for the efficiencies that integrated online marketing can provide.

In order to be successful online, marketers must take an integrated approach and use all of the different channels that the Internet affords them.

The key takeaway here is through multiple and different touch points, campaigns leverage each other to gain traction, rise above the noise, increase response, and ultimately increase ROI.

Trend #10: Technology as a competitive advantage
Marketing technologies are the new strategic business tools. With inefficiency gained through interactive tools, budget will go to other investments, including marketing technology.

Integrated online marketing tools can also do something very critical—they can share important data and metrics across the many disciplines. Email metrics can then be leveraged for SEM programs.

Additionally, a good provider will provide important tools that assist and improve any email deliverability efforts. Emails that don’t make it to the inbox can take a significant chunk out of the email campaign ROI. And these days, you can’t afford that!

Integrated online marketing tools should also have the capability of integrating with your CRM systems so leads can automatically be routed to appropriate sales representatives for follow up right away. Details like this can mean the difference between making the sale and losing it. Again, in this economy, every revenue dollar counts.

In late 2009 and into early 2010, there has been a fundamental shift in budget towards online marketing. Because of this fundamental shift, companies of all types and sizes can expect their underlying business model to shift along with it.

To ride this trend to success in 2010, marketers should take time out to survey their current marketing technology solutions to uncover opportunities for improvement. Put a little time in up front and you’ll be rewarded at the end.

The first step is to diagnose whether your teams, people, and processes are actually working together to leverage this knowledge, data, and metrics, to ultimately improve results. Marketing technology itself can provide a competitive advantage that results in improved performance and improves the strategic direction of your company. But you have to have the right tools, and then they have to be proactively harnessed. How you put them to use is also quite important.

With the rapid evolution of online media, marketing emerges as a driving force behind new innovations that significantly contribute to business and growth.