Email Marketing as an Afterthought
By Kirk Crenshaw - May 7, 2007
Email Marketing is a Powerful Tool - Are You Allocating Enough Dedicated Resources to do it Right?
Everyone agrees that email marketing is a solid marketing tool. It is relatively low cost, and provides an amazing ROI. The DMA has reported that it generates over $50 for every dollar spent - Hard to say that for many other types of lead generation activities.
But, in many companies, the role of the email marketer is minimized to the point where it is just a minor function of a junior staff member. It is seen more as a tactical vs. a strategic tool. Today's email marketing requires more resources and expertise than many companies are willing to commit. You need to understand the latest and greatest technology, manage delivery issues, ensure email formatting is correct, segment and target your email targets effectively, ensure the right message is going to the right audience - at the right time, manage your company's online reputation, and so on...
Loren McDonald of J.L. Halsey focused on this issue in a couple of recent articles:
"Here's the real issue. Most companies are uninformed about email-marketing best practices and suffer from a lack of in-house, expert resources. Very few companies recognize this, however, because even poorly done email still tends to perform fairly well. No harm, no foul, right?"
"A poorly executed email program can reflect negatively on your brand and hurt your reputation and sales.
Email marketing has always been easy to do, but tough to do well. That's especially true today because email marketing requires more expertise and resources than most companies are allocating."
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