An unsolicited email pinging into your inbox is not a recent phenomenon. In 1978, marketing manager at Digital Equipment Corporation Gary Thuerk sent an electronic message (as it was known then) to 400 users of ARPANET, a forerunner of the internet, promoting his company’s computer products. While the initiative resulted in $13 million worth of sales for Thuerk, the message provoked anger among users and a reprimand from the network’s administrators. This earned Thuerk the unwanted moniker of the ‘father of spam’.
This ‘batch and blast’ approach has proliferated because a small percentage of recipients will still buy the product being marketed to them, but 40 years on from Thuerk’s email, we’ve reached saturation point. So where do we go from here?
“Get personalisation wrong and it alienates your audience, accelerates list churn and creates negative publicity.”
The privacy challenge
“GDPR brought a new dawn,” says Paul Collier, marketing and inside sales director, western Europe at software company IFS. “If you followed it to the letter, your opt-in rate was on the floor. But it’s challenged us to be creative.”
For Paul, the new data protection regulation meant confirming what IFS had been practising for several years – no more junk emails. “Spamming our customers is not a good thing. We haven’t sent a mass email to our database for five years,” he says. IFS has been moving away from ticking off every channel, becoming less reliant on email and prioritising other strategies. This was prompted by audience fatigue and a general anesthesia from email, all of which has been exacerbated by GDPR. “It challenged us to say, if not email, then what?”
Emma Westley, CMO of Polymatica Europe, agrees the privacy regulation has had an impact. “It made us think about clearing out our database. If they’re [people] not engaged, what’s the point of keeping them?” Email, in her view, has become less and less relevant. “Even if you try to make it personal, it’s still a blast channel and can put people off.” Email should be used for newsletters and company updates, but not as a way to communicate a hand-crafted message. “Don’t pretend it’s personalised, people aren’t stupid.”
Five ways to boost your email personalisationDaniel Incandela, CMO of Return Path tells us how to personalise your emailUse email data so you can implement personalisation that goes beyond a name. Consider other elements of the email, such as content, context and tone of voice to maximise engagement levels.Build a profile of a typical subscriber to ensure emails are sent at the optimum time of day. Using segmentation and conducting a deep and honest analysis of who is engaging and when can determine which types of emails can maximise subscriber engagement.Take into account the recipient’s location and environment. For instance, if the weather in the recipient’s area is sunny or hot then promoting weather-appropriate products or using relevant greetings can significantly boost email engagement rates.Think about the time of year. The perfect time to open an email will change depending on the season. During the summer, it’s no surprise that customers are likely to be active later in the evening compared to the winter. Send the right message at the right time, based on recipients’ behaviour.Consider the device the recipient chooses to use. Over the past five years we've started to witness new behaviours, such as subscribers triaging their mail on a smartphone and later opening the saved messages on a desktop to take action. The future of email personalisation needs to incorporate these behaviours into the sending strategy.
MA is part of the problem
Ironically, the success of marketing automation systems in the past few years may also be part of the reason why so many customers are now switching off. “Over recent years, marketing automation has caused a swing back to the use of email as a main channel of communication,” says Emma. “Many platforms map a journey around email because vendors have pushed it that way.”
With the trend now towards more personalised messaging, the tech has had to evolve in order to keep up. Marketing platform HubSpot has recently released ‘conversational marketing’, an integration with messaging platforms. They’ve realised, Emma says, that getting to the next stage means turning away from an email-centric approach and using a mix of channels.
Paul agrees, saying marketing automation is a useful tool only if you have a good database, something email effectiveness also relies upon. “Marketing automation tools are all a bit obsolete if you don’t have good data. You can have the best tools for sending messages, but if no one’s listening, you’re sharing in a dark tunnel.”
He suggests MA platforms’ reliance on email means their relevance is rapidly reducing, but “they may come back into their own once databases improve”.
"Don't pretend it's personalised, people aren't stupid"
Alternative approaches
If your customer ad prospects are suffering from email fatigue, what other approaches can you take? Emma has seen success with other platforms such as LinkedIn and WhatsApp.
“One-to-one marketing means choosing the right channel for the customer and content you’re trying to promote.” Polymatica has seen good engagement from LinkedIn with a combination of sponsored content and one-to-one messaging. Emma suggests using social to track customer behaviour and make initial contact, then connecting via WhatsApp for meeting at events and building relationships.
Paul argues there is still a firm place for email in the marketing mix, but as a support function. “The best GDPR-led campaigns we’ve done are the ones in which we’ve researched a company and looked to have a positive effect on its objectives.” One way to get this across, he says, is to create a message that is articulated in the customer’s terms and uses their language.
“We’ve gone through this ‘purge’ and now there are fewer emails, but we must start being more creative to get more engagement,” says Paul.
Paul found that targeting a specifically researched company meant five times more engagement. He trialled different account-based marketing approaches with a mix of expensive low-number direct marketing (DM) campaigns, cheaper high-number DM campaigns, and an email and social approach. It was a success in all cases. “The key target company we ring-fenced represented 3% of the overall audience in terms of whatever tool we deployed, but 15% of the engagement.”
Email marketing: A timeline1971 Computer engineer Ray Tomlinson sends the first email (to himself).1978 Marketer Gary Thuerk sends the first mass email, resulting in $13 million worth of sales.1980 Email hosting sites begin to appear.1991 Hotmail launches as the first free web-based email service, introducing personal emails available to all, transforming direct marketing.1992 The first marketing automation platform, Unica, is launched.1993 ‘Email’ replaces the term ‘electronic mail’ in popular vernacular.1997 There are now 55 million email users worldwide.1998 The Data Protection Act is updated to ensure all email marketing includes an opt-out.1999 The number of email users worldwide has reached 400 million.2003 In Europe, the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulation introduces defining rules for marketing permission.2007 Apple releases the first iPhone.2009 Return Path reports nearly 30% of commercial emails sent to users do not reach their inbox.2011 Email is used by 75% of British iPhone owners, making it the most popular internet activity on the phone.2012 40% of marketing emails are opened on a mobile device.2018 GDPR comes into force, imposing new obligations on how companies use personal data.2019 It’s estimated there will be 3.8 billion email users worldwide by the start of the year.2022 Email users are expected to reach 4.2 billion.
Emails with empathy
To get emails right you must keep them simple and obvious, says Steve Kemish, who is a managing partner at Junction Marketing Agency and a trainer for B2B Marketing. The best way to use email marketing is to map your customer journey and look for gaps where email can help ‘nudge’ a customer to move them along. “Too often emails are hard to scan and don’t have a clear call to action.”
He also recommends an email strategy that focuses on the long-term. He advocates creating a series of messages over time to nurture and engage opportunities, rather than putting all of your hopes into ‘one big send’.
Emma agrees that email can still be useful if customers are responding to that channel. She argues that if people are still wedded to their desktops or want time to digest content, email still works. Emailing long form content, such as white papers, that customers can read on a commute, for example, is one way to use it – as long as that’s what the customer wants.
"The answer isn't email and it probably isn't social"
Emma adds that if somebody’s actually thought about crafting an email properly, and using language that’s familiar to the reader, it can come across as very human. The best tactic is to treat people like they’re friends or colleagues, rather than names in a database. Do the research, come up with a crafted message, and take the time to get to know who you’re emailing, otherwise it won’t be opened, she advises.
Such creativity and personalisation is likely to be the future of email, which means marketers should prepare. “There’s a broader skillset needed,” says Emma. “We need to start thinking like a salesperson, thinking about one-to-one conversation and engaging with the customer.”
While Paul agrees that emails should be empathetic and demonstrate that you understand them, he isn’t convinced email will regain the prominence it once had. “The answer isn’t email and it probably isn’t social,” he says. “It’s definitely challenging marketers – depending on their grey hairs. I used to do this 10 or 15 years ago, so I understand the balance.”
