I came across an article today on how many people are not making the most of Email Marketing.  This struck me as true and very accurate.  The typical email marketer creates good content, and blasts it off to everyone in their list.  While the article touches on targeted content, triggers, and other topics of note, the one that struck me is the lack of attention to ROI.  This is because most email marketers do not get beyond the opens and clickthroughs to determine how effective email marketing efforts are in converting sales.

True, Email Marketing is simply a means of lead generation for most companies.  Unless a company is an online retailer, it is difficult to determine ROI conversion rates without some planning and some good software.  To evolve and become a strong, robust part of a company’s marketing strategy, email marketing must be tied to the full circle of lead generation.  This can be done using a variety of methods:

• Coupon Codes: For email marketing that involves brick-and-mortar stores, a coupon code is essential to see where the customer came from.  A carryover from Direct Mail, coupon codes are a simple way of tracking traditional retail sales or phone orders from an email marketing effort.
• Web Analytics: Integration of email marketing and web analytics is key.  Clickthroughs only tell half of the story.  If I know a particular user clicked through, but that user then bought another product, then the click through is somewhat meaningless.  An email marketing/web analytics integration will track a user’s initial click from an email into the website and track what pages the user visits, not only immediately after the click through, but on any return visits in a specified time frame.  This can help track interest and, in the case of e-commerce sites, actual purchases, even if the customer makes different purchases than what the marketing effort was geared towards.
• Lots of A/B Testing: A/B testing of differing sets of criteria (subject lines, time of day, content types, day of week, etc.).  The key is to analyze the results and base future marketing decisions on them.
• A Good CRM System: A good CRM system ties it all together and helps the results of marketing efforts work for the sales team.  When a user clicks through and navigates to certain target areas, that information should be readily available to the sales rep so that a follow-up call can be made.  Additionally, both Sales and Marketing should have a single view of the success of their marketing efforts, from a revenue, customer, and campaign perspective.

Tying email marketing to a larger CRM picture is not an easy task.  In fact, it often gets neglected or short changed in CRM implementations.  Yet the benefit that can be derived from a good email marketing intelligence platform is well worth the planning, the effort, and the expense.

Related posts:

1. For Direct Marketing, Cell Phone Number Is The New Email Address
2. Adding Value To Your Direct Marketing