Overcoming the Main Concerns Facing Email Practioneers Today?

The key concerns facing email marketing practitioners

Email is used heavily in both B2B and B2C markets. The medium hasobvious advantages- immediate, cost effective, real-time tracking and quick feedback loops for testing. The benefits are well documented, but this only tells half the story. UK email practitioners are facing difficult challenges when trying to manage an email program.

Adestra have conducted a survey of 65 UK based email practitioners to discover what the main challenges are that are facing them today. The results make interesting reading, with participants readily recognising that they could improve their email program.

In this article we provide a detailed summary of the main findings and Adestras suggestions of how you can address them.We also look to the US. A more advanced email market than the UK, a recent Marketing Sherpa study has provided insight into the challengesfacing US marketers. Despite a more advanced email market, thechallenges described are similar to those facing UK experiences showingthat all email practitioners across the globe are facing similarchallenges

Survey reveals challenges facing UK email marketing practitioners

Published in June 2005 as part of the preparation for the Adestra email marketing clinc at the Online Marketing Show, Adestra have just conducted a survey of UK marketers to understand their challenges:

Methodology of the email marketing surveyThe survey canvassed 65 UK based marketers to investigate what theybelieve are the main challenges facing them within their emailmarketing.Both B2B and B2C companies participated including companies such asFord Motor Company, Coors Brewers, Prudential, Investec AssetManagement, RAC, Future Publishing Ltd, Cotton Traders and ReedBusiness Information. Findings of the email marketing survey

34% of B2B and 29% of B2Cmarketers in the sample agree that the growing, cleaning and managementof their email contact database is the aspect of their email marketingprogram that they could improve most

When considering what hot topics marketers wanted to learnmore about to improve their email marketing, both B2B and B2C marketersvoted for the same aspects:

Deliverability: ensuring messages get to inboxes

Message design: optimised design and lay-out of messages

The future for email: new emerging technologies within email marketing e.g. rich media

B2B marketers want to learn more about best practice lead generation email programs whereas B2C marketers prefer to discover more about eZine newsletters.

4 out of 5 respondents in the sample plan to use email marketing more in 2006.

Conclusions of the email marketing surveyInterestingly, both B2B and B2C marketers are facing similarchallenges despite using email marketing in different ways. They wantto learn more about issues such as deliverability and spam and mostrecognise that there are faults within their existing programs,especially in the way they manage their email contact databaseWith 80% of the UK marketers in the sample planning to use emailmarketing more in 2006, and the willingness of the sample to acceptthat there are numerous ways in which they could improve their emailmarketing program, marketers should consider working with emailmarketing specialists such as Adestra to use their expertise whendeveloping their email programs

Adestra recommendations for addressing challenges

Email Database Hygiene:

Adestra recommend reviewing your entire data management strategy:

Acquisition: make data capture vehicles work- see our article for suggestions how

Segmentation: Ensure you have enough informationabout each records to select only relevant names for yourcommunications. Badly targeted messages mean more unsubscribes. WithinAdestras Message Focus, you are able to segment by demographic andbehaviour.

Update my details: Adestra recommend that every email you send links back to a form for recipients to updating my details.Even with no incentive, our experience across a number of clientsreveals that for every campaign, a small number of people always updatetheir details. When multiplied over all your communications, thisbecomes a cost effective method of cleaning your database- much cheaperthan using the telephone! Adestra have worked with individual clientsto set these up, often pre-filling the form to increase response.

Feedback: Every campaign broadcast throughAdestras Message Focus automatically suppresses unsubscribe requestsand hard bounces (for more information on bounces, please see our article). This allows you to understand how many active records you have in real-time.

Monitor: Use reporting to constantly understandhow many records on your database have all the fields you require- somemay be missing job titles etc. Consider running extra campaigns toencourage people to provide you with the extra fields you are missing

Learning more about deliverability, spam and the future for email

To keep up to date with the latest hot topics within email marketing,Adestra recommend you subscribe to many email marketing newslettersincluding:

Adestra Updates (our very own newsletter)

Osborne Clarks Marketing law -

e-Consultancy -

Email Sherpa -

Alternatively, you could save time by working with an emailmarketing agency such as Adestra. These companies specialise withinemail marketing ensuring they stay up to date with email developments,so you dont have to- you can just pick their brains!

Learning from eZine Newsletters and Lead Generation campaigns

To get informative case studies, you need to regularly attendmeetings of associations such as the DMA and the IDM, attend allleading industry shows and subscribe to a host of email newsletters.

Amongst this wealth of information, there may be a case study that isrelevant to your role and organisation. Adestra recommend you work withan email marketing agency who can draw from their experience of workingwith many different email players to provide best practice and ideasfrom improvement continuusly. Often, the best ideas come from placesyoud never expect and using an agency such as Adestra allows you tofind them!

Use of email will increase in 2006

Adestra recognise that the email channel will become more importantthroughout 2006 for many companies, both B2B and B2C. Addressing thechallenges today will allow your email marketing program to continuesuccessfully within the future.For more information about the survey, please contact Paul Crabtree

The view from across the pond

A recent Marketing Sherpastudy revealed that most US marketers perceive that they are faced withsignificant challenges when managing their email program. Surprisingly,these challenges are not entirely in the planning and management ofdevising and managing an email marketing program.Instead, it is problems born out of office politics a result of theimportance to the organisation of the email channel. Major battlesinclude:

Frequency caps on sending: How often is too often

Management education: The challenges ensuringsenior management do not perceive email programs as a cheapalternative. Allocating appropriate resource rather than re-usingpeople and content is essential to ensure optimisation. Adding to thisthe need for a mindset shift from a its cheap so lets just keep doingit to a direct marketing paradigm where testing, measurement andimprovement techniques are used is a considerable challenge.

Multiple database managers: Ensuring bothcompliance and the collation of email names from across the business tosupport a coherent and legal email program

Adestra believe that all these challenges can be addressed byimplementing a measurable email marketing program which is continuouslytested to improve it. Questions such as how often is too often canbe answered by analysing the contact history of your unsubscribesuppression file.Educating senior management can be a tough job, unless you have real empirical data to back up your assertions.By demonstrating the ROI associated with your email marketingprogram and getting senior management buy-in will help you overcome thedifficulties getting data from varying sources within the business.When senior management are behind the program, the rest of the businesstends to fall in line.On a more practical level, Adestras Message Focus includes a formmanager which allows you to create data capture forms to be used whenacquiring contact information. This information can be exported fromAdestras Message Focus at any point. Adestra recommend consideringusing Adestra forms to manage your data capture- this ensures youremail database is deduped at the point of collection, you have the mostup to date email list you could possibly have and that you can provideother parts of the business with access to their own Adestras MessageFocus account to download their own lists.

More information about our email marketing broadcast services

Adestra provide welcome tactical advice and input on our clientsemail marketing program.

Adestras Message Focus

Adestra have a proven track record in providing email marketingtools, technology, strategy and support for a number of large corporateplayers.From product delivery for large publishers through to tacticaldirect response promotions for travel providers, all clients alwaysbenefit from the shared best practice and knowledge our team havegained working within email marketing since 2000.

Free email marketing white paper

Adestra have produced a white paper on the challenges that todaysUK email marketers are facing when trying to implement their emailmarketing programThe research is based upon a survey of 65 marketers before theshow, discussions with over 170 contacts during the show and ourongoing dialogues with our clients. It includes Adestras suggestionson how you can overcome challenges including:

Improving data management: email contacts and feedback loops

Find relevant case studies to learn from

Sifting all the data from your email campaigns to find actionable information

Overcoming the office politics associated with email marketing

To receive a free copy of this white paper, please contact us and state Email Marketing Whitepaper within the Further Information section of the Adestra web site (www.adestra.co.uk).

Building An Explosive Mailing List

Building a mailing list is essential to any business regardless of how they operate. Both online and offline businesses strive to grow there customer lists as big as possible. You see, when you have a list you can easily sell new products all the time. Its as easy as sending out an email blast and just like that, you have potentially earned hundreds even thousands of dollars overnight.

But building a customer list takes a lot of work and persistence. It is not something that can be done overnight and sometimes takes even years. I have been operating an online business for over 3 years and just had my online email list reach 100,000 people. My offline list is in excess of over 2 million but once again that took me over 10 years to grow.

You also need a proven system or marketing plan that you can use to grow your lists. I spent 1 year setting up a system that now brings in over 10,000 new emails addresses every month. There are many other ways as well. You can host a FFA, join a free viral program, start a newsletter or ezine, give out a free ebook/free report, or even spend money for lists. The key is having a auto-responder or group mailer that has a easy import and unsubscribe feature. You should set this up with all your marketing tools this way your efforts arent wasted.

Let me explain the ways above which are only a few methods out of thousands that you can use:

1) Hosting An FFA

FFA stands for Free For All. It is normally a links page where other business people post there websites in hopes of getting free advertising for there products or programs. Im sure you have tried this as well. This has been proven time and time again to be a waste of time. The only guarantee you get is that your email box will be full of sales messages from the owners of these FFAs. That is the key. You need to own an FFA in order to see results and grow your lists. Every time someone posts there link to your FFA, they automatically receive your pre-written sales messages to the email address they provide. This is what we call reverse marketing and it is responsible for millions and millions of dollars, of products and services sold on the internet today. There are a few companies out there that you can join that allows you to send your messages to around 50,000 people a month. Just do a search!

2) Viral Program

A viral program is a marketing tool that encourages people to pass along a marketing message to as many people as possible. The definition of viral marketing is promoting information or products that other people are compelled to give to other friends, colleagues and family. By definition viral marketing is a way to promote a service or product successfully. When done effectively one person will pass it on to several people who in turn will pass it on to several other people. This is what makes viral marketing so effective. For example, let me use an e-book that I wrote. If I forward that e-book to 10 people, who in turn forwarded that e-book to another 10 people. One hundred people have read that e-book. Now if its forwarded that same way just four more times ONE MILLION PEOPLE have now read that same e-book. There are millions of viral programs out there that can really help you in growing your lists.

3) Newsletter/Ezine

Starting a newsletter or ezine is a great idea as well. The only problem is you need good quality material to send to your clients. You need free tools, articles, reports, e-books, and anything else you can find that really promotes others to join your lists for free. If people feel like you can supply them with great quality material, they will join your lists guaranteed. You can also run feature articles on some of your members and there businesses this way they feel like they are getting free advertising. With an ezine, once you grow it big enough and establish a good relationship with your clients, you can even charge to run solo ads. This is another source of revenue. Some people make a living on the internet just operating there ezines. Takes a lot of work but well worth it!

4) Free E-book or Report

This is a fantastic way to grow your lists. By giving away something thats free that everyone has use for, you almost instantly ensure your success in growing your lists. There are hundreds of thousands of e-books and reports you can give out for free to all your website visitors in order to get them into your lists. This has been proven to be an incredible marketing tool and will consistently bring you new clients in the thousands every week. I have created an amazing report that you can use for free if you decide to. You can get more information below! Make sure you have this method integrated into all your marketing and advertising efforts.!

5) Spending money to buy lists is the easiest method but it can prove to be very costly. And being the easiest doesnt necessarily guarantee results either. I wouldnt advise this method only because there are so many ways you can build a huge list even for free. If you become that desperate I guess you can try this method. I have gotten mixed reactions from people I have spoken to about this method. Some people it works for and others it doesnt. So you assume all the risk if you decide to go this route!

Once again, the most important aspect to your business like any other business is growing a list. This is vital to your success both short and long term. Make sure your efforts revolve around this at all times. You dont want to lose any potential future customers.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this article. Hopefully you use this information to your advantage.

Publishing Permission Statement:

This article may be freely published in your newsletter, ezine, magazine, website, or in your e-Book, so long as you keep my byline and resource box intact with a clickable link back to

About the Author:

Joe Terceira is the creator of Secrets To Creating Wealth On The Internet It is a free Report designed to help all internet business people with there marketing, promotion, and advertising efforts online. Secrets To Creating Wealth On The Internet provides valuable information and techniques on how to generate over 1,000,000 website visitors and earn over $20,000/month while doing it all for free. You can also give the Report away for free to generate massive website visitors. Visit the website to get your free copy!