Test Your Email Marketing Services

WRM-Media - Email Marketing Specialists

Morgan Stewart from Media Post recently advised that mass email marketing success was entirely dependent on prior testing.

Stewart said that the inbox is a ‘phenomenal equaliser’ demanding that brands of all shapes and sizes meet appropriate standards. A fair comment, as it is true that every email fights for a recipient’s attention from the same place with only its brand reputation and a subject line to stand it in good stead.

‘To improve, you need to try new stuff - a lot!’ he said.

‘However, change for the sake of change itself usually just perpetuates mediocrity. Give yourself (or your team) the freedom to push the limits while constantly comparing the results of these new approaches against a control."

Business standards for testing email campaign performance should be compared against their own previous experiences, in order to improve upon their best, as opposed to making a comparison to the rest of the industry.

Measuring Targeted Email Marketing

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A recent study by MarketingSherpa has suggested that many marketers struggle to continually deliver highly relevant content to a specific target audience.

Despite this, email remains one of the most valuable forms of communication in the majority of digital marketing strategies when focus is given to quality over quantity.

Measuring the return on investment of email marketing is notoriously difficult for many. It can be hard to monitor email responses and the rate of opening to sales/lead. Many companies that provide email marketing services will also provide you with a report upon campaign completion, which details the clicks, opens and unsubscribers to name a few.

To minimise the number of unsubscribers, businesses should be patient when building a targeted email list. One typically successful way of growing such a list is to ask website visitors to provide their email address in return for a service that indicates some of their interests. For example, if website visitors have to leave their email address in order to gain access to a downloadable white paper or extra content/news, you can be fairly sure they are interested in the content on offer.

WRM-Media’s consumer site Who-Remembers-Me.com requests that members agree to receive email marketing material in return for free membership to the site and as the site’s purpose is for members to reconnect with old friends, WRM can offer unparalleled data accuracy as well as an ability to measure the results of all email campaigns.

Small Businesses Benefit From Email Marketing

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Georgia Christian of Male Blaze has suggested that small businesses should be able to receive good ROI from email marketing thanks to its cost effectiveness. In an article for Marketing Web, she noted that the channel is an effective way to establish long lasting relationships with a wide audience of consumers.

"With each permission-based email campaign that your recipient opens, you are effectively establishing a trusting relationship with them," said Ms Christian.

"Your email messages will, over time, make your customers feel as though they are an important part of your company."

WRM-Media believe that email marketing can be a valuable tool to small businesses because it allows targeting towards either a very wide audience, which businesses would be unable to attain otherwise; it also enables targeting towards a very niche marketing if appropriate.  Small businesses can benefit from niche targeting if they cannot afford to lose emails sent to uninterested recipients.  Email marketing can be sent both en masse and to a niche market, making it a unique form of communication.

£336million email marketing industry

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Research in to the email marketing sector by Econsultancy has found the industry to be worth £336million; a 15% increase compared to last year.

Reasons for this include how cost-effective email marketing is, in addition to the fact that it is much easier to measure the success of email over other advertising types.

Econsultancy found that social media had not detracted from email marketing campaigns; on the contrary, their research suggests that the two forms of media can be used in conjunction with one another to create a more successful media strategy. They have explained that the use of both email marketing and social media can build more significant customer relations as opposed to a one-way relationship intent on a return.

The company also found an increase in email marketing digital spend in 2010 compared to 2009. An increase from 14% to 17% suggests increased trust and reliance on email marketing campaigns. In addition, around 51% of marketing companies spend over £10,000 on email marketing strategies.

The BBC recently reported on research commissioned by Google which said that the internet contributes £100 billion to the British economy, working out as 7.2% of the UK’s gross domestic product (GDP).