When you stop and think about it, human beings are pretty simple creatures. We focus on a few key areas; love, work, health, and structure the rest of the things that take place in our average day around making more time to focus on those critical elements. The funny part is that as humans we are fickle. And after a certain period of time, we often lose interest in the things we structured our lives around until we can latch on to something else. When that happens, our daily routine is modified and our response patterns change. 

While people have enjoyed and then quickly lost interest in many ways to communicate (anyone remember pagers?), email marketing has been able to maintain its appeal as a marketing vehicle and a personal communication tool.

Twelve years ago, a client of mine asked me why anyone would ever consider using email. It required you to be near a computer, it wasn’t personal, and a phone call or direct mail piece was so much better. Today, that same client has moved 100% away from paper reminders for their health products and rely solely on mobile and email.

Four years ago I tried to explain to my family that my job was in Email Marketing. I didn’t even get the standard “Oh, so you are a spammer” comment. I just got confused looks. Two weeks ago, my dad invited me to be his friend on Facebook and now tells me he prefers to email me through there.

In internet years, email marketing and messaging have been able to stand the test of time. Part of its buoyancy has been due to its flexible nature. Email is one of the only communication channels that can be both a mass marketing tool and a personal dialogue generator at the same time. It can adapt to a reader's interests fairly quickly. You want email on the go? OK- check it on an iPhone. You want email where you talk online? OK send it through social networks. You just can’t get those real time, intimate interactions with a TV ad.

Email’s potential impact on consumers has become so strong over the year in fact, that it has retained its spot as the #1 channel for driving ROI for close to five years now. For such a powerful driver, email seems simple. But as an email marketer, you soon realize email is hard. Email marketing is a phenomenally complicated beast to master. It can do so many things, and offer so many options, deciding how to use it is often the hardest choice to make.

Recently, a colleague of mine David Daniels and I wrote a book titled Email Marketing; An Hour A Day. In this book we ask people to spend one hour per day, for 90 days in a row, to learn the intricacies of email marketing. We all wish email was simple to master. It seems simple, create a message, load a list and hit send. But, in reality, an effective email marketing effort requires attention to both creative and technical aspects, as well as integration with other channels and lines of communication. In our book, we try to break down these critical element is into simple to digest components which can led to increased successes.

Of the many various elements making up effective email marketing campaigns we focus on some of the key drivers for results: the subject line, a positive delivery reputation with ISP’s (which means a well designed opt-in programme) and integration with other channels like mobile, search and social. Getting these elements right can provide a competitive edge right when you need it.

We also address the trickier areas of email marketing: the creative design, understanding response, and setting expectations for results. One of the biggest a-ha moments of writing the book was learning that something strange happens to many marketers when they come to work. They forget to think like a consumer and begin to create messages, and designs that are pretty, but counter-intuitive for driving response. A great example happened this holiday season. Consumers were in the mindset to find shopping discounts and deals. They scanned their email boxes to find subject lines like “Free shipping, or XX% off” and if the email didn’t say something like that, even though it was something of interest in the past (like a technical newsletter), it often got overlooked. The smart marketers realised this and began writing subject lines like “FREE news and advice inside” to maintain the timely interest of the reader.

Small learnings like this one can drive significant results if you can adapt your campaigns to integrate them quickly. Setting up an outbound messaging system, and process to be flexible is not difficult, but it does take some planning and consideration - about 90 days worth. So if you want your 2009 email efforts to be as strong as they possibly can, look for impactful, quick hits (like matching your subject line strategy to the current thoughts in your consumers minds) and implement them in Q1. Also spend the time to create a flexible platform that will enable you to change with the times, and with your customer communication demands, and be able to offer a flexible communication stream that meets their needs. Email might not be simple to master, but it is worth it to your company’s bottom line when you learn how to make it work for you.

For more details, tips and tricks about Email Marketing, click here and browse through the book for free. Who knows, you might be glad you did.

Jeanniey Mullen
Zinio