What does the future hold for New Zealand email marketers? One thing’s for sure, email is not dead despite the rumours you may have heard. By Simon Young

By Simon Young (Andrew Larkin features)

http://www.archivesearch.co.nz/default.aspx?webid=MKT&articleid=13277

If you haven’t heard the talk, don’t worry. Most of it comes from the US where spam, and the measures taken to control it, are making life difficult for marketers who use email.
Chris Pirillo sends email newsletters to 400,000 opt-in subscribers every week, and he says email is dead. Not just dying but dead.
His comments sound over the top and unrealistic, until you consider he’s one of the biggest email publishers in the world, as well as the author of “Poor Richard’s guide to email publishing”.
That’s all hype, according to Tango Communications’ strategy director Boyd Wason: “Email’s not dead. It’s like saying tv will replace radio. Other channels are coming out, but they’re just supplementing email, not replacing it.”
The biggest issue right now is the inability of legitimate, opt-in emails to reach their intended recipients.
Touchpoint md Steve Shearman represents the marketing industry on an InternetNZ taskforce on the spam issue. “Worldwide, the problem’s got to the stage where ISPs are putting [filtering] solutions in, and spammers are sending even more to get through.”
Shearman notes that 10%-15% of emails sent do not reach their intended recipients. That’s a loss, he admits, but improvements in strategy mean emails are more effective with the people they do reach.
Marketers also face the issue of just how to break through inbox clutter. According to Ferris Research, people in Asia-Pacific receive six spam emails a day, with projections showing 31 spam emails a day in 2008. Whew.
New Zealand marketers benefit from three main factors:
n Small market. Most local marketers are usually in touch with their target market in one or more ways other than email.
n There are relatively few spammers in New Zealand. Most spam comes from southeast Asia or Russia, according to Netconcepts ceo Stephan Spencer.
n Self regulation. Unlike the US, Europe and Australia we have no legislation on spam. Instead, the industry regulates itself by voluntary adherence to common principles (see box story “Around the globe”). These generic advantages give New Zealand marketers a huge head start over larger markets. But these tips from leading email service providers and practitioners can get you into the coveted customer inner circle of trusted emails. More to the point, they’ll help get them read.
1 Get to know your customers. “It’s all about the relationship you have with the reader,” says Wason, “and how you can improve that relationship.”
Shearman says it’s a long-term process with the focus on progressively learning more about prospects: “Most of the clients of our agency partners collect as big a prospect database as they can, not collecting too much information at first. Over time, you’ll see who the hottest prospects are and tailor communication to them – and it may not even be through email.”
MessageMedia business development manager Zac Pullen agrees, noting that mature early adopter clients are moving on from increasing list size to wanting to know more about their existing subscribers.
This includes letting go of subscribers who don’t open their emails or click on links. “Other clients are beginning to segment their mailing lists and send targeted content to these segments,” says Pullen.
2 Don’t use email alone. “The reality today is, email is a component,” says Shearman. “It’s email and mail, or email and something else.”
Email is now most effective when used with other channels, and its success as a medium is being measured in other ways than simple click-throughs. For instance, a US study showed that 59% of people surveyed had made an instore purchase as a result of receiving email marketing.
Jeff Mann, director of Jericho (the web developer that produces Smartmail software), also sees a trend towards integrating email and ecommerce, with recipients able to make purchases from within the email.
3 Test and measure copy, offers and other variables on list segments. Opinion is split on this traditional direct marketing practice.
Wason points out, “With New Zealand’s population size, by the time you’ve tested you’ve already rolled out to the base.”
Mann agrees that not a great deal of testing and measuring occurs, but it’s not always because of limited numbers. “New Zealand doesn’t have many ‘email marketers’ as such, just marketers who use email,” he says.
“We have had some bigger clients do some tests where they’ve changed out the offer, the timeline on the offer, the price and then sent.
“Less than one percent of our customers do that kind of testing and measuring, but that will change as marketers become skilled email marketers.”

Timing & The Inner Circle
For best results, email business readers during business hours (11am to 3pm works best), and on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
For consumer readers, try weekends. Home internet users tend to check their emails from Friday to Saturday, and the best time to send is between 5pm and 8pm.
Sending at the right time is only part of the vital formula to be part of the inner circle. Research from US email marketing firm Quris shows that consumers are defining an inner circle of email relationships with whom they are willing to engage. The number of email relationships is holding steady at an average of 16.
Quris identified factors to help marketers get inside the inner circle: interesting content, account status updates, contests and sweepstakes, and entertaining or amusing content. The research also noted that email recipients who chose to personalise their options were more likely to purchase as a result of email marketing.
In New Zealand, Emerge Agency’s md Andrew Larkin notes that response rates are slowing down. In their effort to manage incoming information some of the ‘instant’ quality of email is being lost. Thankfully, however, they are still reading it.

Favourite Business Activity?
Whether it’s a chore or a pleasure, we do a lot of emailing. And, spam problems aside, we find it a convenient way to communicate.
In April 2003 the Meta Group spoke with employees at 387 companies around the world, finding that 80% of them prefer to communicate by email, with only 20% preferring phone.
Key reasons for preferring email included ‘response flexibility’ (it’s easier to avoid replying to an email than a phone call), easy communication with multiple parties, an automatic ‘paper trail’ and speed of execution.
Figures from America Online and Roper ASW show a similar picture in the US, with 43% of internet users choosing email as their preferred form of business communication, followed by phone at 33% and regular postal mail at 17%. Seven percent reckoned they didn’t know.
In October 2003 the DMA, MessageMedia and Calcium Software surveyed 3000 business people throughout New Zealand and got one of the biggest responses the DMA has ever received. Instead of asking for preferred methods, this survey asked which tools people used for business communication, and what proportion of their day it took up. We spend nearly half the day with email. It makes up 42% of our daily communication tasks, followed by face-to-face at 25%, and phone at 18%.
The survey also looked at the percentage of marketing budget dedicated to email and web marketing. In most cases the figure was less than 10%.

Around The Globe
The much-touted CAN-SPAM act in the US has had little effect on spammers, instead making life more complicated for legitimate, permission-based email marketers.
The act lets marketers send ‘opt-out’ emails, not requiring explicit permission. The other end of the pro-cess is where it gets sticky. Once a recipient unsubscribes, it becomes illegal to send any more email.
In most cases this is fine, but what if the recipient is subscribed to more than one list? Or what if future messages are sent from the brand through a third-party list, a common practice in the US? These meaty issues will keep some email marketers up late, carefully wording and designing subscription processes.
In Australia it becomes illegal to send unsolicited commercial email on 11th April 2004 when the Spam Act 2003 comes into power. This Act prohibits Australian businesses and individuals from sending any unsolicited commercial emails and is backed up by hefty fines.
The Australian Act has received the most support from the sometimes rabid anti-spam activists worldwide who claim it sets a good standard for email marketing.
Anti-spammers aren’t as happy with UK legislation passed at the end of 2003, which prohibited British firms from spamming only to personal email accounts, while it remains legal to send unsolicited commercial emails to an at-work address.
EU legislation, on which the UK law is based, centres around an opt-in strategy, recommended by most email marketing providers and New Zealand’s DMA. The US is at odds with the rest of the world, putting the onus on the customer to opt-out or unsubscribe from unsolicited emails.
There’s no spam legislation in New Zealand, but marketers using email are bound by the Privacy Act and could certainly benefit from following the DMA’s eMarketing Network “Standards for email use”, available at www.emarketingnetwork.co.nz.

Simon Young is md of Simon Young Writers, a specialist copywriting and emarketing agency. Get a free whitepaper and newsletter at www.SimonYoungWriters.com

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