New white paper asserts integrated email marketing crucial in the survival of the fittest in retail

New white paper asserts integrated email marketing crucial in the survival of the fittest in retail

Mobile marketing, social media integration and strategic campaign planning will encourage increased investment in email and online marketing during the next twelve months, according to Emailvision, Europe’s largest email service provider.

Figures published by MarketingSherpa in 2009 showed that more than a third of companies increased spending on email. Last year was also another of strong growth for retention-based email marketing, despite the onset of a global recession, which forced businesses to aggressively cut spending on marketing activity.

As a result, Nick Gold, UK managing director at Emailvision, selected the three key trends over the next twelve months, which he believes are set to make a significant impact on email marketing:

1. Email marketing and social media will feed off one another

Integrating social media into email marketing allows a brand to boost the performance of both mediums. Bringing the two channels together is critical when growing mailing lists organically, as recipients spread the content virally, encouraging others to opt-in and receive future mailings.

2. Adoption of mobile marketing is set to rise significantly

Customers are increasingly relying on mobile devices for communication and messaging, therefore mobile marketing is a natural extension when building a multichannel engagement strategy. Mobile marketing can be broken down in two segments, smartphones and SMS.

Email for smartphones – messages for these devices should be optimised prior to sending, as the devices typically don’t support Flash animation and network speeds vary

SMS – Combining campaign management for email and SMS can enable brands to manage customers more effectively. For example, you can send an SMS offer to a customer based on an email they’ve opened to increase the chance of it resulting in a sale

3. The emphasis should be on strategic campaign planning

Strategically planning email campaigns ensure brands capitalise on every opportunity. Too many campaigns irritate customers, while too few won’t keep a customer engaged. Putting in place a strategic plan will help brands to align and integrate email campaigns with all marketing activity, ensuring they are effective.

“It is important for marketers to stay ahead of the curve in terms of consumer attitudes and the channels they choose to use when engaging with brands,” Gold said. “The first step is to put in place a marketing plan that is fresh and relevant, factoring in the evolving needs of customers. Email will continue to be the king of measurable ROI [return on investment] in 2010 and will be the glue that binds all marketing activity.”

Emailvision has published a new white paper outlining its top ten trends for email marketing in 2010 that can be downloaded here.