Can the Spam

Baldwin Louie — Fri, 24 Aug 2001 15:00:00 -0700

Two years ago, e-mail marketing was supposed to be the next big thing. Sending out a salvo of e-mails to current or prospective customers was way cheaper than a traditional paper (aka "junk") mail campaign. Marketers could immediately measure response rates -- and benefit when consumers virally forwarded the pitches to friends and family.

Today, e-mail marketing has become a victim of its own success. "More and more messages are being sent, and consumers are becoming e-mail jaded," explains Forrester Research analyst Shar VanBoskirk. She says that typical users—who, on average, receive 210 e-mail messages of all kinds each month—are now half as likely to make a purchase as a result of an e-mail pitch as they were last year.

To survive, e-mail marketing has been forced to make some changes. Gone are the days when a company could just blast a rented list of addresses with a generic, all-text offer for half-priced dog chow. To have any hope of rising above the sea of spam, today's e-mail campaigners must be much pickier about who they mail to and how they present their pitches.

"When someone opens an e-mail, you may have two to three seconds to capture their attention,” says iwon.com VP Direct Marketing Peter Shapiro. Iwon's attention-grabbing tactics include embedding graphics of large piles of cash in its missives. According to Forrester Research, the top e-mail marketers now employ HTML for 60 percent of their mail messages; they expect that figure to hit 100 percent by 2003.

Iwon.com creates all of its e-mail marketing in house, maintaining its own staff of copywriters and designers. Other advertisers call in outside agencies to add polish to their e-mail. Bottled water purveyor Evian for instance, recently distributed a short video clip to some 25,000 e-mail addresses. That clip, produced in Flash, was the handiwork of interactive design and consulting firm NuRun.

Another lesson learned: While e-mail marketing started out as a way to capture new customers, it’s now seen primarily as a customer retention tool. Rather than just firing off a one-time sales pitch, businesses are developing series of e-mail messages that create an ongoing dialogue with their customers.

"You don’t always have to be focusing on converting them into buyers the first time," says Nancy Joyce, General Manager of online ad firm DoubleClick's e-mail division. "The goal should be, 'How do I build up my client database so that I can convert them over time into customers?'"

Amazon, for example, is famous for its e-mails reminding buyers of new works by authors and musicians they’ve bought before. Others, like handheld computer maker Palm, run e-mail programs that provide their customers with tips and tricks for using the product.

The future of e-mail marketing lies in its integration with customer relationship management software. CRM systems maintain customer profiles based on a person's purchase history and previous interactions with the company. The most effective email marketing campaigns will use this info to match customers with sales pitches. Already, many popular CRM companies like Kana, E.piphany and Blue Martini include email tools as part of their product portfolio.

The ultimate goal: True one-on-one marketing, with promotional e-mails sent to one buyer at a time. When that happens, e-mail marketing might finally send a message that can't be ignored.

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Can the Spam