cullmanndesign blog

In the past 2 years, there has been a tremendous push to move messaging and advertising to social media. Whether FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, every market has it’s niche and ad agencies have gotten proficient at targeting groups within these networks. While social media marketing was maturing, there was (and still is) a trend in dismissing e-mail marketing. With relatively low click-through rates, competition with SPAM, difficulty in delivering branding elements in many e-mail clients, it had become easy to cast off for the more attractive and exciting new arrival: social media.

Verification

Despite a dip in popularity, e-Mail is still a force to be reckoned with for communicating with customers. Regardless of audience, e-Mail is still one of the few ways outside of a closed-wall eco-system like Apple or FaceBook, that a marketer has to “verify” identity or ownership of credentials. One field of any online transaction of information is ALWAYS e-mail. A savvy marketer will verify the e-mail address with a call-to-action confirmation as quickly as possible to confirm that the email can reliably be associated with a particular identity. Next to credit card information, this is a very easy and convenient way to apply a small amount of accountability to an online user. The process of having users “opt-in” and define the terms that they would like to be communicated with is important and based on metrics, e-Mail is still the most popular method for online CRM and brand-building communications.

Call To Action & Response

E-Mail offers users an expected behavior that is comfortable for them. A well-designed e-mail program will have a clear “From” identifier, visible before even opening the e-Mail, a subject line declaring the main intent of the message and the message (usually with several call-to-actions). User are familiar and typically follow a pattern of behavior if you structure your e-Mails with consistent design and language. This is where e-Mail excels: While social media channels are still working towards how to handle unique customer response and moving users from the gated sanctuary of a particular social network, e-Mail delivers a personalized medium with the ability for a unique call-to-action. All of this can be done addressing the users as an individual, tailoring content and offering an end-to-end dialogue. E-Mail’s ubiquitous nature allows this to be done across any platform or device (including mobile).

Reach & Audience

One of first and still the most common method of communication on the internet, e-Mail offers the widest audience. A majority of web users claim more than one active e-Mail address1, many having several. There is also a wave of adoption for new audiences. AARP has recently released data showing that seniors are the fasting growing group of adopters2 of e-Mail. Those in emerging markets overseas also represent a growing population of e-Mail users. There is a simplicity and approachability that makes it attractive to new web users and bullet-proof to web veterans. There are several complications when dealing with e-Mail as well. e-Mail is a communication channel protected in the US by federal law. The manner in which you engage your customers (or recipients) must adhere to the US CAN-SPAM Act. Although it’s a simple criteria to adhere to, not observing the standards set by this policy will likely land you in your reader’s junk-mail file.

Privacy (sort of)

Although E-Mail is far from a secure medium, it does offer several advantages over social media, SMS and several other hot advertising mediums. A marketer and e-Mail recipient can both expect that the contents of an e-Mail message will not be seen by dozens of their friends, other customers or competitors. Additionally, this same channel can be acted upon with an expectation that the action will be equally as private. This may seem like a small nuance, but if you are someone buying a present for a loved one, accessing banking information or even making a mundane request from the post-office, you can expect that the exchange is limited to the addressed parties.

Equally important, a user can respond via e-mail without a character limitation, or concern that there will be additional charges on their bill for the communication. These are both issues facing SMS marketing and communication. Although immediate, it is a concern to those not familiar with texting and it’s protocols.

Cheering The Underdog

I am a believer in e-Mail marketing. I don’t think it is a silver bullet or the only solution for marketers, but rather, a tortoise in the proverbial race with the hair. Currently, the role of the hair is played by social media and SMS marketing. I think both of these have a place. I also believe there are many cases where social media marketing is a run-away winner. The power of e-Mail marketing is in it’s familiarity and direct nature. It offers strong ROI and is easy to measure both success and failure. For the average person, e-Mail is approaching 15 years old. Even if you’re not measuring your time in “internet years”, it has come into it’s maturity.

Before you pass-off your next opportunity to pitch an e-Mail marketing plan to a client, ask your self about the message and audience. The solution may be easier and more traditional than you may have thought.

You want more?
Check out MailChimp and CampaignMonitor for great tools to launch your campaign. If you want to learn more about who is opening and how frequently messages are read, check out MailerMailer’s metrics report from 2009.

Think Vitamin, an online resource for new media designers has posted a fantastic video explaining foundation concepts for designers getting started with designing and building html e-mails.

I get questions from a lot of Designers and Art Directors who have questions about how to address e-mail marketing. It’s a tricky craft with a ton of e-mail clients, too many devices and the challenge of SPAM filtering. From layout to some basic coding, the Think Vitamin tutorial covers a lot of ground.

The video tutorial is a sampling from their new offering membership.thinkvitamin.com, a competing product to long-time video tutorial group lynda.com. Both are great places to learn about any skills you may be new to or rusty with.

I like to learn something everyday. It needn’t be an epiphany or the secret to life, but I really like the idea that every evening comes to an end with some fact or bit of knowledge that I hadn’t had that morning. I have to admit that I get a tremendous amount of these daily facts or learning from the internet. Never has such a wide variety of subjects or shear amount of information been so easily accessible to so many and so easily.

Enter iTunes U

iTunes U is a hosted resource offered by apple through iTunes. It’s a basic and very cool framework for anyone to create a comprehensive course or online learning experience to be distributed via the iTunes network. Although I am leery of closed infrastructures like iTunes, the scale of audience you can reach and the dominance of Apple’s consumer media devices makes this a fantastic new playground for educators and organizations. Content creators can apply to enter the iTunes U store, upload and create a custom page for their institution. The content can be arranged (and once published searched) by subject, topic or institution. There is space for an institution summary, class syllabus and individual class description. Classes can be distributed as audio or video. Content creators can also control the distribution and allow access by parties via controlled or free distribution. The classes can be updated real-time like a regular semester class or cumulatively as a retrospective.