How Will Marketers Use Email in 2007?
Results of the 2007 Email Marketing Survey
Last month, The Outperformance Marketing Review ran its first annual email marketing industry survey. As we approached the New Year, we asked you to share your 2007 email marketing plans with us and your fellow colleagues. We gained some very interesting insight from many of you.
We have collected and tallied all the results and we hope this survey helps shed some light on how the industry will be using email in 2007. We appreciate everyone who took the time to complete the survey. And congratulations to our lucky iTunes gift card winner!
Survey Summary
First and foremost, we wanted to know how much interaction you planned to have with the email channel in 2007 compared to previous years. The response was overwhelming; email is going to be used more frequently in 2007. And, from using email as a customer acquisition tool to using it for customer retention, a majority of you plan to increase your marketing budgets around the medium this year. With almost all of the respondents claiming they expect to see an increase in ROI from email, it is no surprise that most respondents favored email as the most important advertising medium for 2007
Click here to view the full results of Datran Media’s 2007 Email Marketing Survey.
Datran Media Offers Reach to Texas-Sized Audience
Expands Relationship with Publishing Giant
They say everything is bigger in Texas. That slogan seems to apply to magazines in the Lone Star state as well. Datran Media recently announced it has expanded its relationship with Texas Monthly, one of the largest regional titles in the nation. Texas Monthly, published by Emmis Publishing, has a paid circulation of 300,000 and is read by more than 2,500,000 people each month—one out of seven Texas adults. So just how big is the publication’s readership? For starters, it is 4x the population of Alaska.
The relationship between Texas Monthly and Datran Media offers marketers a tremendous reach to a key audience. Texas Monthly readership is comprised of an equal number of men and women, most of whom are between the ages of 30 and 55. Generally speaking, they are college educated, married, and affluent, and they live in urban areas. Texas Monthly covers politics, business, sports, food, music, the arts, the Texas myth, and anything else relevant to life in Texas today
For more information on reaching these highly coveted consumers, contact us or call 212/706.4817 to learn more.
Since launching this feature last year, we have received a ton of great questions. One of the most popular questions we receive asks about ways to increase open rates. Therefore, we thought we would we re-publish an answer we gave on this topic many moons ago. We look forward to answering more of your questions in 2007.
Q: What are some methods used to improve the open rates of marketing emails?
A: That is a good question, but before I answer let me ask you a question – Do you know what your open rate really means? Basically, the open rate is a measurement of how many of your emails “registered” as open. It is not an accurate indication if it was actually read or not. Therefore, you are probably more interested in the methods used to get consumers to not only open your email marketing messages, but what strategies will get your emails read and help increase your response rate.
There are several factors that will determine if an email is opened, and ultimately, read. Email marketing is unique in that you can send specific messages to a targeted audience. Thus, you can tailor your content to the interests of your consumers. With so many emails cluttering our inboxes, a message that resonates with a consumer will automatically stand out from the rest.
You’ll want to focus on your subject line as it is the most visible and likely the first thing your reader will view. Keep it short, and write it so it leaves the consumer wanting to learn more; using an active tone generally helps. And most importantly, avoid words and phrases associated with spam like “free” or “bargain”.
Be sure to use a familiar “from” name. You’ll want to use a name that your audience immediately recognizes, such as the company or product name. Once you decide on a “from” address, stick with it.
Test, test, test! Just like in traditional direct marketing, it is important to test your messages to measure what works and what doesn’t. Create different variations of your emails like messages with different subject lines, and see which copy works best. Test different times of the day to send your mail and different days of the week.
Of course, it goes without saying that getting passed strict ISP guidelines and actually making it into the consumer’s inbox is the first and most important step.
If you’d like to learn more, Datran Media would be glad to discuss how you can leverage our expertise to outperform your email marketing goals and get your messages opened, read, and making money for you. Contact us at 212.704.4806.
Send your questions to askanexpert@datranmedia.com. If we answer it, we'll send you a FREE Datran Media t-shirt!
