Final Project
“Email Marketing Effective Yet Challenging”

Rebeca Machado
Marketing Management, Section O
Professor Dr. Nall
November 23, 2014

“Email Marketing Effective Yet Challenging”

Marketers always face the difficulty of knowing how much to spend on marketing. Like one once said, “I know that half of my advertisement is wasted, but I don’t know which half” (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p. 488), it is a challenge to know what part of their effort it is being effective and what is just a waste. One possible solution for this problem is email marketing campaigns. From a well targeted consumer contact list to a well designed email with an efficient and appealing subject line and short body message, emails are a very important tool in marketing (Carmen & Nicolae, 2010, p.737). Email marketing has several advantages but it must be administered effectively in order not to become intrusive and disregarded by consumers. An efficient email marketing campaign should benefit both the company and the customer (Alan, Chaudhary & Jason, 2010, p.188). Email is a very useful and easy tool to reach customers over large geographic areas -- even those across the world. There are several reasons why emails are beneficial when used in marketing. First, it is the fastest and, when used efficiently, can be an inexpensive way to reach customers (Bonfrer & Drèze, 2009, p. 251). Second, comparing with other marketing techniques, email marketing requires low implementation costs (Carmen & Nicolae, 2010, p.737) and decreasing costs is very important when trying to spend the least in marketing. Third, it can be easily accessed by anyone. Fourth, it has “effective managing solutions and confidentiality tools such as security privacy policy” (Carmen & Nicolae, 2010, p.737). Fifth, through email, marketers are able to offer time sensitive information (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p. 543). Finally, the use of email has grown exponentially over the last decade. Data shows that in 1985 there were only 2 million email accounts. By 2001, there were about 891.1million and in 2002 there were approximately 1 billion (Chittenden & Ruth, 2003, p. 203). Since technology is always advancing, marketing must advance as well. The main purpose of email marketing is to maintain contact with previous and current customers, improving the relationship between them and the consumer’s loyalty to the business. Emails are also used as an announcer and reminder of offers. Through emails, complex information such as videos, images, documents and other data can be easily transmitted. The greatest advantage of using emails is that customers can open and respond to the information whenever they want. This makes feedback more consistent in email than in the other delivery methods such as phone calls and regular mail (Carmen & Nicolae, 2010, p.738). In the beginning, the response rates of emails was very high; however, as time went by, this response rate significantly declined reaching below 2.5 percent in the early 2000s (Bonfrer & Drèze, 2009, p. 251). Thus, marketers were forced to create emails that persuade customers to open them instead of deleting them. Starting with the subject line, they must carefully choose which word to use that will appeal to customers. Emails with subject lines using positive numbers, making it time sensitive, and using words like “free” have a greater chance of being read than those including the word “cancelled” or negative numbers. MailChimp, which is an email marketing software available, said that one single word in the subject line can determine whether your email will be opened or not (How to Boost Your E-mail Open Rates, 2014). Thus, marketers must use the right words that are not only appealing to customers but also reflect the main idea of the email. Email content that does not follow what was transmitted in the subject line causes customer’s dissatisfaction (McAdara-Berkowitz, 2013, p.171). Once marketers were successful with opened emails, there was one more step to achieve, getting customers to pay attention to the content. Long emails are the first to be skipped, thus marketers must keep emails as short as possible. Appealing offers and images make the email more attractive increasing the probability of the email being read (Rettie, 2002). Besides being short and having an appropriate subject line, a professional distribution service must be used in the delivery process so it is easy for customers to opt in and opt out (McAdara-Berkowitz, 2013, p.171). Customers should not feel as prey of email marketing. Another important factor is determining how frequently to send emails to the same customers. If emails are sent too often, it would waste customer’s time, leaving them a bad taste for that brand (McAdara-Berkowitz, 2013, p.172).
Considering that most of the time consumers see advertisements as intrusive, the main expectation of a marketer using email is for the sent emails to be opened and read by the customers instead of being deleted. If the advertisement has valuable information it would be less irritable and avoidable. Marketers must be extra careful on how much and what information to use on emails. Including too much irrelevant information causes the email to be seen as a spam and thus to be avoided (Hsin, Rizal & Amin, 2013, p. 318). Emails should contain just enough information that would cause customers to want to know more about it and look for complementary information and click on links provided in the email (McAdara-Berkowitz, 2013, p.171). Annoying consumers would cause email marketing to yield opposite results thus hurting the business (Hsin, Rizal & Amin, 2013, p. 321). Acquiring and using the appropriate customer contact list is very important for a successful email campaign. Selecting the list for the marketing campaign can be challenging but it is the most important and first element to be considered in email marketing. Marketers should take into consideration targeting customer’s segmentation when creating a contact list. Although some sell customer contact lists for a significant amount of money (Han & Reddy, 2000, p. 50), marketers must consider that trading customer lists would not only give them an untargeted list, but can also cause customers to distrust the brand and become negative towards email advertisement (McAdara-Berkowitz, 2013, p.171). Another thing to consider is the possibility of acquiring old and poorly sourced data (The Global Email Deliverability Benchmark Report, 2011, p.5). This could lead marketers to send emails to no longer existing email addresses or even to addresses linked to people longed deceased. These emails would be wasted since there would never be any response or sales attained from it, and if the company is using an email marketing service company they will be paying to deliver those emails that will never be profitable.
According to Deveney, It is more successful to maintain relationships with existing and prior customers than searching and reaching out to strangers. Therefore, he suggests that marketers start with the contacts they already have and from there branch out asking customers to forward the message to family and friends (2004, p.17). An example is a local restaurant has a sign up sheet for customers to add their email addresses if they so desire. This leaves it totally up to customers to add themselves to the restaurant’s customer contact list or not. IT is a voluntary method of acquiring customers’ email addresses. On the other hand, stores like Polo, Adidas, Under Armour, and others all ask for you email address as they cash you out at the register. People feel forced to give their addresses and it is annoying to have to go thru all the information specially if they are in a hurry. These last customers might never forget that experience and most likely would have negative feelings about advertisements from the same store. One threat for marketers is the ever updating and improving email filters. Since spam is so annoying and dangerous as it could cause consumers to totally avoid email advertisements, Internet and email service providers are always updating their filters. Thus, even a well-developed email with important information might end up as junk mail and undeliverable if caught by those email filters (Alan, Chaudhary & Jason, 2010, p.188). Therefore, although customers love efficient filters that could keep every junk out of their inboxes, marketers are always afraid of the potential of their advertisement being seeing as spam and never reaching their customers.
Any update or adjustment an Internet or email service provider does will affect the sender and receiver of emails. A great example of this scenario was when Google created the Primary, Social, and Promotion tabs in their Gmail settings. This improvement was very appreciated by customers who no longer needed to deal with advertisements while searching for important emails. Since promotional emails were kept separate, customers had the opportunity to open them as they were ready for them and choose to do so instead of having to constantly avoid those advertisements while busy with something else. Marketers on the other side of the game, were upset as the probability of their email advertisement going unnoticed increased (Minsker, 2014, p. 25). Results can be measured by software that generates reports according to the number of emails that are opened (Carmen & Nicolae, 2010, p.738). Email marketing software is a professional email distribution service that allows managers and marketers to keep track of their email campaign. Some examples of this type of email marketing service are, MailChimp, ConstantContact, and Active Campain. These services track not only what emails are being opened and by whom, but they also track when the emails are being opened and if any links are clicked within the email. This allows marketers to better understand their customers and their habits.
One of the bests of email marketing services is MailChimp because of the features it offers. MailChimp allows marketers to keep track of when customers received the email, when they opened it, whether they clicked on any of the links provided, and even whether the email was bounced or was not opened. (The Global Email Deliverability Benchmark Report, 2011). They also offer something called a split campaign, for example: a company that might be trying to sell mittens and scarfs. Marketers using email as their delivery channel would first choose two different subject lines for their email campaign, which could be “Burrrrrr… it’s cold…” and “Scarfs and mittens on clearance.” MailChimp A/B Split Campaign would then send emails to a few customers within their customer contact list using one subject line and a few other emails with the other subject line in order to see which one would be more appealing to customers and thus have a greater opening rate. Once determining which subject line was more successful, MailChimp would automatically send the email with the best open rate to all the remaining customer contacts. Another way MailChimp tests efficiency in email delivery is testing from whom customers prefer receiving their emails from, whether from the company itself or from an individual within the company. One last strategy used by MailChimp in the A/B Slip Campaign is testing delivery date and time; what day or time of the day is more efficient to sent emails based on the time previous emails were opened and read (Getting Started with AB Split Campaigns, 2014). Through graphs, tables, and charts, MailChimp assists managers and markets to track their sales from the first click all the way to the final payment. Thus allowing marketers to set goals on how to be more efficient in reaching customers. One last tip for being successful and attaining consumer loyalty in email marketing is to be personable and even thank the recipients (How to Boost Your E-mail Open Rates, 2014, 11). It is quite uncertain what the future of email marketing will hold. However, as technology continues to advance rapidly, marketing must follow it in order to keep the public interested in the products and services they promote. According to Maria Minsker, email marketing’s future is going mobile (25). As the time people use their computers is decreasing, emails are creeping into cell phones and other mobile devices. There are a few challenges with mobile email marketing. Since mobile devices have smaller screens, wording and appearance of emails must be concise. Less wording and large, bold images make a mobile email more attractive. People also move through their email inboxes quicker (Minsker, 2014, p. 26, 27), looking through only what they see as important and needed. Thus, marketers must make their email appealing and eye catching. Minsker stated that changes in technologies will continue to affect email marketing, which in turn must keep up with new ways of succeeding in it (28). In addition to these challenges, emails are expanding into global market places that present different challenges such as language barriers, totally different consumers, and different buying patterns. Considering how dynamic and diverse the global market is, it is important to consider these differences when dealing with other countries, languages, and cultures. Email marketers must remember that there is not a “one-size-fits-all solution” (Bilodeau, 2014) for email designs and features. Marketers must be always testing and checking for new configurations that would be more attractive to customers from each country. As the global market grows with businesses from countries all over the world trading with each other, it is noteworthy that email, the fastest delivery marketing tool is the most used marketing delivery method worldwide. Research has shown that about 68 percent of marketers believe email is the core to their business marketing and 48 percent of them send over 500,000 emails each year (The State of Global Marketing for 2014, 2014). Interesting enough, one out of every five emails sent worldwide never reach the inbox destination. Seven percent of those emails go to the junk and spam folder while other 12 percent just disappears. It is very important to keep in mind the delivery rates for different countries when considering emailing other nations. The United States has the highest delivery rates of 86.5 percent of the sent emails reaching their destination while in China, only 58 percent of the emails sent reach their destination (The Global Email Deliverability Benchmark Report, 2011, p.5, 8). Therefore, marketers must take the necessary steps to help improve email deliverability in order to ensure the emails they are sending are not just disappearing somewhere. Marketers should search for the data that shows where the emails are going and why. They should never forget that every email that does not reach their destination is costing them money; thus, they must take delivery failures seriously. One other thing to keep in mind is to never assume that just because a specific email generated great responses it must have been delivered to every inbox (The Global Email Deliverability Benchmark Report, 2011, p.9). Email is a valuable tool for marketing in today’s world. When used with a well-researched contact list and an inviting subject line, emails can be a very effective and relatively inexpensive marketing tool. Email marketing should be beneficial both to the company and the customer in that the company can reach a broad customer base and customers are provided buying opportunities through their computers and mobile devices. The companies maintain contact with their previous and current customers and recipients can access the information whenever it is convenient. When emails are used through dedicated email software, important feedback is provided to companies to help with future marketing. Because today’s market is global, email marketing is the perfect device to reach customers worldwide; however, there are challenges with an ever-changing technological world, assuring mail delivery, language and cultural diversity.

Reference Alan, S. A., Chaudhary, T., & Jason, K. D. (2010). A multi-industry, longitudinal analysis of the email marketing habits of the largest united states franchise chains. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, 11(3), 187-197. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/dddmp.2009.31 Bilodeau, K. (2014). Make Your Global Email Marketing Hit the Target [Infographic]. Retrieved on November 22, 2014 from CMSWIRE: http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/make-your-global-email-marketing-hit-the-target-infographic-026194.php#null Bonfrer, A., & Drèze, X. (2009). Real-Time Evaluation of E-mail Campaign Performance. Marketing Science, 28(2), 251-263. Carmen, P., & Nicolae, P. A. (2010). EMAIL MARKETING CAMPAIGNS: THE EASIEST PATH FROM ORGANIZATIONS TO CONSUMERS -- AN EXPLORATORY ASSESSMENT. Annals Of The University Of Oradea, Economic Science Series, 19(1), 737-742. Chittenden, L., & Ruth, R. (2003). An evaluation of e-mail marketing and factors affecting response. Journal Of Targeting, Measurement & Analysis For Marketing, 11(3), 203. Deveney, J. (2004). How to develop a successful e-mail marketing campaign. Public Relations Tactics, 11(11), 17. Getting Started with AB Split Campaigns. (2014). Retrieved on November 22, 2014, from MailChimp: http://Kb.mailchimp.com/campaigns/AB-split/getting-started-with-a-b-split-campaigns Han, P. K., & Reddy, V. (2000). Optimize your e-mail marketing campaigns. Marketing Management, 9(4), 50-53. How to Boost Your E-mail Open Rates. (2014). Physical Therapy, 11.
Hsin, H. C., Rizal, H., & Amin, H. (2013). The determinants of consumer behavior towards email advertisement. Internet Research, 23(3), 316-337. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/10662241311331754
Kotler, P., & Keller, K. (2012). In Marketing Management (14th ed., pp. 488, 543). Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
McAdara-Berkowitz, J. (2013). 5 Tips for E-mail Marketing Without Becoming a Spammer. AMWA Journal: American Medical Writers Association Journal, 28(4), 171-172.
Minsker, M. (2014). The Future of EMAIL Marketing. CRM Magazine, 18(2), 24-28 Rettie, R. (2002). Email marketing: success factors. The Global Email Deliverability Benchmark Report. 1H 2011. Retrieved on November 22, 2014, from: Return Path: http://www.returnpath.com/wp-content/uploads/Return-Path-Email-Deliverability-Research-1H 20111.pdf The State of Global Marketing for 2014. (2014). Retrieved on November 22, 2014 from Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/ExactTarget/the-state-of-global-marketing-for-2014